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The Life Worth While 



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The Life 
Worth While 



By 
EDWARD LEIGH PELL 



Richmond, Virginia 
Robert Harding Company, Inc. 






LIBRARY Of CONGRESS 
Two Copres Received 

DEC 10 1906 

/q Oepyriarht Entry 
CLASS A x/c, No, 
COPY B. 



COPYRIGHT. 1906 
BY ROBERT HARDING COMPANY. INC. 



Contents 

PAGE 

I— The Satisfied Soul - - - 9 

II— The Blessed Life - - - 15 

III— Not By Bread Alone - - 20 

IV — ^The Most Necessary Thing 26 

V — Love the Law of Life - - 33 

VI— A Heart at Rest - - - - 42 

VII— The Way of Life - - - 47 

VIII — ^The Condition of Service - 53 
IX — The Secret of a Fruitful 

Life ------- 57 

X — The Thing That Counts 

With God ----- 61 

XI — When a Man is Free - - 65 

XII — The Worship of Success - 70 

XIII— Making a Choice - - - 74 

XIV— My Two Natures - - - 79 

XV— The Victorious Life - - 83 



Contents— Continued 

XVI— A Well Armed Man - - - 88 
XVII — Consecration vs. Annihila- 
tion ------- 93 

XVIII— The Source of Power - - 96 
XIX— The Lowly in Heart - - - 1 1 
XX — Heart Questions About 

Prayer ------ 107 

XXI— Judging Others - - - - 114 

XXII— How Often Shall I For- 
give ? - - - - - - - 1 1 7 

XXIII— The Unruly Member - - 121 
XXIV— The Hour of Temptation - 128 
XXV — Sweetening Our Pleasures - 133 
XXVI— The Grace of Thankful- 
ness -------136 

XXVII— When the Heart Aches- - 144 

XXVIII— In the Day of Doubt - - 148 

XXIX— Doubt's Surest Remedy - 161 

XXX— In the Hour of Peril - - 165 

XXXI— The Limit of Human 

Power ------ 169 

XXXII— In the Valley of the Shadow 1 73 
XXXIII— Comfort in Bereavement - 183 



To know Him though we cannot understand 
Him, even as our children k^ow us hut do not 
understand our ways; to he always conscious 
that He is, that He is actually with us, that His 
eyes melt with tenderness whenever He looks 
upon us; to recognize Him as our Lord whom 
we have enthroned in our hearts forever ; to serve 
Him and our fellowmen blithely and with a 
gentle hand; to k^ep the current of our lives in 
the channel of His truth; and to watch dail}) 
for the footprints of Him who has gone before 
to prepare a place for us — these are aims that 
are worthy of all that is loftiest and best in man. 

For it is in the fulfilment of these aims that 
we shall find life — life eternal; the onl^ satis- 
fying life ; the only life worth while. 



I 
The Satisfied Soul 

Man may be defined as the animal that 
is hardest to satisfy. The poor woman at 
Jacob's well is a fitting type of a world that 
drinks its wells dry and never ceases its 
thirsty cry. We are all desire. Our flesh 
desires much; our minds ^earn for more; 
our souls — ^who can fathom the desires of a 
man's soul? We yearn, and yearn, and 
yearn. We go in quest of pleasure and 
come back tired, but never satisfied. We 
chase a pleasure as a child chases a butter- 
fly, and when we find it we straightway 
look for another. And we live in a world 



10 The Life Worth While 

that is provokingly unsatisfying. It is al- 
ways offering to quench our thirst and al- 
ways putting to our lips the cup that in- 
flames thirst. When the world does its 
best it satisfies us but for a moment, and as 
a rule, when we say that we are satisfied 
we are only surfeited, as when a child eats 
a pound of candy and will have no more. 
As for the mind, every truth-seeker knows 
that there is no way to quench the thirst 
for knowledge except by starvation. The 
more we know the more we want to know, 
and our craving never ceases until we 
cease to know anything. As for the soul, 
the world does not seriously attempt to 
satisfy it. It has nothing to quench the 
thirst of our immortal part, and it can only 
suggest something to keep our souls wrap- 
ped in slumber that they may not be con- 
scious of hunger, as a helpless mother 
without food for her hungry children tries 
to get them oflf to sleep that they may 



The Satisfied Soul 1 1 

cease to cry. "Whosoever drinketh of this 
water," says Jesus — whosoever seeks to 
satisfy his thirst at any of the wells that 
the world has provided for men — "shall 
thirst again." A man may go round the 
world and drink deep at every fountain of 
pleasure that the world owns, and he may 
■come home surfeited, but he will not be sat- 
isfied. The world has no drink to satisfy 
the thirst of the soul. 

And yet the famished multitude is still 
spending its money for that which is not 
bread, and its labor for that which satisfieth 
not. This world is a great fair — a vanity 
fair — in which men and women and chil- 
dren jostle one another in their mad rush 
to the booths where fakirs sell toy balloons, 
and popguns, and firecrackers, and cheap 
jewelry, and mysterious prize-boxes — ^all 
warranted to satisfy every craving of the 
human heart. How very absurd! Yet, 
many of us who think ourselves wiser than 



12 The Life Worth While 

the crowd are sometimes caught up in the 
mad rush, and before we know what we are 
doing we too are spending our money for 
that which is not bread. My neighbor on 
my right was sure that the only thing in 
the world he needed to make him per- 
fectly happy was a home of his own. But 
the home multiplied his wants a hundred- 
fold and brought more unrest. My neigh- 
bor on my left thought that all he needed 
was another ten thousand. But the ten 
thousand brought more unrest. My little 
girl was confident that the secret of human 
happiness was all wrapped up in a "perfect 
love" of a new spring hat. But the new 
hat brought a craving for another new 
dress. 

Is it possible to satisfy the human soul? 
I know some souls that have surely learned 
the secret, for they are no longer feverish 
or restless, and whatever befalls them they 
are always able to eat their meat with glad- 



The Satisfied Soul 13 

ness and singleness of heart. They have 
not found wealth, or honor, or social posi- 
tion, but they have found that which has 
satisfied them. They have learned that it 
is not what a man gathers from without but 
what is developed within that determines 
his wellbeing. They have learned that the 
thirst which men are trying to quench is 
not physical or mental, but spiritual, and 
they have discovered for themselves that 
there is nothing which can satisfy the crav- 
ings of a man's spirit but the presence and 
friendship of the great Spirit. 

And how did they discover the secret? 
By listening to the voice of Him who stands 
in the temple crying, *Tf any man thirst let 
him come unto me and drink." That is all. 
There is nothing that can satisfy spirit but 
spirit. It is the testimony of all men who 
have come to Christ that "he satisfieth the 
longing soul." No man has ever been dis- 
appointed in him. No man who has opened 



14 The Life Worth While 

his heart to him has complained that there 
was still an aching void. He meets our 
case. He is our sufficiency. He is our 
satisfier. 



II 

The Blessed Life 

I have just said that it is not what a man 
gathers from without but what he develops 
within that determines his well being. Real 
blessedness is no more dependent upon 
one*s outward circumstances than essential 
manhood is dependent upon the clothes one 
wears. This truth has been verified by the 
experience of men from the beginning of 
time, yet it comes to many a man to-day as 
a genuine sensation. We say, Blessed is 
the man who is satisfied with himself. We 
envy these men who look so comfortable, 
and who pat themselves with the comfor- 



16 The Life Worth While 

table air of one saying to his soul, "Soul, 
thou hast much goods laid up for many- 
years." There are times when we can grasp 
our Lord's view of this sort of thing — in 
bereavement, for instance, or when sitting 
alone with one's conscience, or under a 
melting sermon — but how hard it is to 
realize the blessedness of the poor in spirit 
when dining with a company of men of 
the world who have achieved wealth or 
fame? Yet, at a single turn of the wheel 
of fortune we may come again to under- 
stand how utterly hollow is the happiness 
that rests upon the things one gathers about 
him. 

Blessed is the man that laughs, say we. 
Yet who does not know that it is the tear- 
less life that is rich in misery? As for the 
meek we contend that they will be driven 
oflf the face of the earth. Yet as we grow 
older we learn little by little that it is not 
the man who elbows his way with much 



The Blessed Life 1 7 

noise and perspiration that makes his way 
in the world, but rather it is the man who 
quietly bides his time, and often with a 
smile gives way to the blustering fellow 
who is trying to run over him. If we have 
not yet learned that those who hunger and 
thirst after righteousness are blessed, we 
have surely learned by this time that the 
man who never hungers and thirsts after 
righteousness remains as empty and dry in 
his spirit as a last year's gourd. It is not 
the man who is always looking for some- 
body to show him mercy but the man who 
shows mercy that is blessed. It is not the 
man who is peculiarly favored in his sur- 
roundings that will see God but the man 
with a pure heart. It is not the man who 
is descended from Abraham, but the man 
who promotes peace that is recognized as a 
child of God. And what is all this but 
simply another way of saying that it is not 
what comes to a man from without but 



18 The Ufe Worth While 

what he carries with him in his heart that 
makes him truly blessed? 

Now the question comes home to us : If 
true blessedness is not a matter of outv/ard 
circumstances — if it is not a matter of bet- 
ter food, better clothes, better social posi- 
tion and all that — should we who desire 
real happiness give our whole thought and 
strength and time to this one thing of try- 
ing to improve our material surroundings? 
Should we mourn over our material pov- 
erty always and over our spiritual poverty 
never? Should we be always craving 
worldly pleasures and never yearn for any 
real spiritual good? Should we spend our 
whole time drawing water from a well that 
never satisfies, and give no thought to the 
ever-springing fountain which Christ is 
ready to open up in our hearts? Should' 
we be always looking for favors rather than 
seeking to show mercy? Should we wear 
our fingers to the bone trying to keep our- 



The Blessed Life 19 

surroundings clean and never give a 
thought to the cleansing of our hearts? If 
the rule of Christ in our heart is the only 
source of blessedness should we not seek 
first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
ness ? Should we not put the kingdom fore- 
most in all things ? 



Ill 

Not By Bread Alone 

If outward circumstances have nothing 
to do with real happiness what part should 
a Christian have in the world's struggle for 
what we are accustomed to call the good 
things of this life? 

I recall that when Jesus spoke of the 
evil of consuming one's life in the accumu- 
lation of wealth for its own sake he was not 
addressing an audience of millionaires. He 
was speaking to poor people who had al- 
ways been poor, and who were now by rea- 
son of a long prevailing financial depres- 
sion less likely to become rich men than 
ever* They had reached that point in the 
struggle for bread where one is liable to 



Not By Bread Alone 21 

forget that man must not live by bread 
alone, and where one is apt to form the 
most extravagant notions of wealth. In 
other words, they were at the point where 
many a man of to-day ordinarily finds him- 
self six days in the week. They knew how 
hard poverty was, and they reasoned that 
wealth must be a soft bed to lie on. "If a 
man has money," they must have said, just 
as we are saying to-day, "he can do any- 
thing ; without money he is a whipped dog." 
And so it was to you and me and the 
rest of the world's great army of fevered 
toilers that Jesus spoke when he said : "The 
question of life does not depend upon the | 
abundance of things which one may pos- 
sess. Men have lived nobly and success- 
fully without possessions, and men have | 
added great wealth to their names without 
adding either length or breadth to their 
lives thereby. Life is more than making * 
a living, and a man should not wear his 



11 The Life Worth While 

life away with anxiety over that which is 
least, as if one could live by bread alone, 
or as if God, who is interested in the life, 
could not be trusted to exercise a provi- 
dential care over it. Even nature rebukes 
your anxiety and points to his loving care. 
The ravens which are not able, as you are, 
to sow and reap, and which have neither 
storehouse nor barn, go about their simple 
task of looking for their food, and God 
feeds them. How much more are ye better 
than the birds ? And the lilies — study them 
intently and take the lesson to heart: see 
how they grow; they do not toil nor spin 
that they may clothe themselves with beau- 
tiful garments, and yet I say unto you that 
€ven Solomon, the highest type of magnifi- 
cence, in all his glory, was not arrayed like 
one of these. If God clothes the lilies how 
much more will he clothe you." 

One cannot help noticing that the opin- 
ion of Solomon's magnificence thus inci- 



Not By Bread Alone 23 

■dentally expressed is as far from asceticism 
on the one hand as it is from worldliness 
on the other. It is not an expression of 
contempt. Jesus did not in one breath 
urge men to work and in the next belittle* 
their workmanship. He was not one oi\ 
those who exalt labor and abuse its fruits. 
He did not teach that it was a virtue to sow 
but a sin to reap. He removed the fruit of' 
Solomon's labors from the mountain top 
where the glamoured world had put it, but 
he did not trample it in the dust, nor put 
it among thorns or noxious weeds; he 
placed it beneath the shadow of one of 
God's lilies. No one who has considered 
a lily can call that contemptuous tteat- 
tnent. 

Holy men of old had compared man to a 
flower. "As a flower of the field so he 
flourisheth." Jesus took up the familiar fig- 
ure and declared that, in the matter of dis- 
tinguishing ornament, man is inferior to a 



24 The Life Worth While 

flower. No man has ever been able to 
array himself as gloriously as God arrays a 
lily. All these things which we strive and 
groan and agonize after, which cost us 

\ sleepless nights and almost bloody sweat, 
are not, when we have gotten them, equal 
to the robes which are provided for the 
helpless lily that does not know how to 
strive nor cry. Solomon scoured the earth 
to surround himself with magnificence like 
an aureola, and when he had spent himself 
in the task the result did not equal the 
glory with which God, in the meantime, 
had arrayed the humble lilies which, tied 
down to their narrow homes, could only 
keep their hearts wide open to receive what 
heaven's thoughtful love might send. Not 
that the glory of Solomon was so small, 
^ but that what God does for the humblest 

' of his creatures is so great. Not that the 
workmanship of our hands is despised in 
his sight, but that, as compared with what 



Not By Bread Alone 25 

he does for his helpless ones, it is as an arti- 
ficial flower to a real one, a painting to a 
sunset. We are not taught to despise the 
things which Solomon possessed, but we 
are warned that we make a terrible mistake 
when we place such an extravagant esti- 
mate upon worldly glory that we are will- 
ing to neglect our souls and wear ourselves 
out in the struggle for it. Better would it 
be to leave all the treasures of earth to moth 
and rust and thieves than that the soul 
should be corroded with care. Better would ' 
it be to starve the body than starve the soul. 
But the man who comes to this point 
need not look for starvation. For while 
man is like a flower in his career, and infe- 
rior to a flower in adornment, he is infinite- 
ly higher and better than a flower in the 
thought of God. If the providence of God 
stoops low enough to care for a lily, can 
it, in stooping miss the humblest of his 
children ? 



IV 
The MoS Necessary Thing 

' Let us now think of little while, in this 
chapter and in those which follow, about 
some of the things which have to do with 
our well being. First we will think of 
faith. We place faith foremost not because 
it is the greatest thing in the world, for it 
is not, but because it is the fundamental 
thing — the most necessary thing. The won- 
derful achievements of faith and the high 
estimate which our Lord placed upon it 
have given it an air of mystery, and it is 
not an uncommon notion that there is 
something magical about it. Yet one has 



/ 



The Mo^ Necessary Thing 27 

only to put himself for a moment in the 
place which Jesus occupies in the presence 
of one who has appealed to him for help^ — 
as, for example, the leper, or the centurion 
— to see that it is not mysterious at all, 
and that its apparently magical power is 
the most natural power in the world. 

For faith is the point at which weakness 
takes hold of strength. A little child stands 
tefore me. She is very beautiful; she is 
winsome; she is good; she has many 
charming traits. But the little thing is in 
•distress and she has come to me for help. 
And she appeals to me in a way that shows 
that she has the utmost confidence not only 
in my power to help her, but in my wil- 
lingness to help her. She has come trust- 
ing me implicitly. Now, what do I see in 
this child? What is the thing that gets 
liold of my heart and draws me to her? Is 
it her beauty? her winsome ways? her 
goodness? Is it not the fact that she is 



28 The Life Worth While 

trusting me? And it makes little differ- 
ence what she asks — I will go through fire 
and flood rather than that she should trust 
me in vain. 

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so 
the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Men 
talk of the unreasonableness of faith, but 
what is more reasonable than that God 
should be touched by the cry of those who 
trust in him? I do not say that this is all 
there is in faith, but this is enough to ac- 
count for its drawing power. If you and I 
will answer the appeal of faith that comes 
to us from another man's child, how much 
more will our Father in heaven answer the 
appeals of faith which his own children 
make to him! 

I have said that faith is the most natural 
power in the world. And it is the most 
necessary power. It is the motive power 
that runs the world. Without faith the 
wheels of the world would stand still. We 



The MoSt Necessary Tiling 29 

never do anything without faith except in 
our insane moments when we are moved 
by sheer animal impulse. Take faith out 
of tire world and there would be no life; 
there would be only stagnation, cold boil- 
ers, dead wires, death. Take faith out of 
business and there would be a world-panic 
as soon as the wires could carry the news. 
Take faith out of the home and you would 
have left — perdition. Take faith out of so- 
ciety and every man would snatch up his 
gun and take to the woods, each seeking 
some retreat in which he could barricade 
himself against the whole world. The thing 
that makes the world beautiful and happy 
is love. But the thing that makes the world 
endurable is faith. Faith is the most neces- 
sary thing in the world. 

Perhaps there is no grander spectacle in 
all ancient history than that of Abram the 
Chaldean leaving home and friends, and at 
the command of heaven striking out across 



30 The Life Worth While 

the country for an unknown land with no 
assurance that he would ever have a home 
again — ^striking out through the dark ''not 
knowing whither he went." It is the grand- 
eur of courage, we say sometimes; and 
again, the grandeur of implicit obedience. 
But no, it is the grandeur of faith; for it 
was his faith that gave him the courage and 
the will to obey. 

That picture of the father of the faithful 
overwhelms us like a glimpse of a great 
mountain. We feel small. We feel so 
weak. There are two things we are always 
crying out for — courage to obey, and the 
will to obey. We see the right and we want 
to walk in it, but our worldly friends — what 
will they say? We see our duty and we 
want to perform it, and the spirit is willing 
but the flesh is so weak. When we look 
for courage our hands tremble and our 
hearts grow faint. I said we want to walk 
in the right way, and we want to do our 



The Mo^ Necessary Thing 31 

duty; perhaps I should have said we have 
a desire, though we have not the will. We 
lack the power to obey. And so we cry out 
for courage, and we cry out for the spirit 
of obedience; and we are still cowards, 
and still disobedient. What is the trouble? 
If Abram's faith had been small would he 
have had the courage to say to his friends 
that Heaven had commanded him to go to 
an unknown country ? Could he have faced 
their ridicule ? Could he have passed by in 
silence their suspicions of his sanity? 
Would he have had the courage to go at 
all? If his faith had been small would he 
have had the will to go? Would he have 
been strong to obey? Would he have 
cared whether he obey or not ? But having 
faith he had both courage and the spirit of 
obedience; and he had all that he needed. 
Having faith he could obey, and in obeying 
he drew God to himself to be his protector, 
to stand by him, to favor those who fav- 



32 The Life Worth WhOe 

ored him, to punish those who sought to 
hurt him. Having faith in God he became 
the friend of God. 

And so this is my need — to have faith in 
God. How can I cultivate the little faith 
that I have? I notice that I have believed 
in him more since I have learned him bet- 
ter. If, then, I learn him better still — if I 
read more about him in his Word, if I com- 
mune with him oftener, if I listen more 
earnestly to his voice, if I follow more 
closely his will, if I get closer to his heart — 
will I not believe in him better still? 



V 
Love The Law of Life 

I have said that faith is the motive power 
that runs the world. But it would not be 
worth while for the world to run at all if 
there were no love. For love is the thing 
that makes life worth living. It is the very 
-essence of the real life — the life of the spirit. 
It is the spirit what the breath is to the 
body. There is no spiritual life without it. 
There is na good without it, for God is 
love; and a thing is good only as it ap- 
proaches the likeness of God. 

In his wonderful "charity" chapter Paul 
i:eaches us that whatever else we may have, 



34 The Life Worth While 

if our hearts are not saturated with love, 
we are nothing. Love is the fulfilling of the 
law — the law of God, the law of life, the law 
of all good. Love is the thing that secures 
for us all that is beautiful in life and pre- 
serves us from all that is ugly and that 
makes us wretched. For example, it is pa- 
tient with the faults of others, and keeps 
us from the discomfort of worrying over 
other men's weaknesses. It never envies,, 
and therefore keeps us from much un- 
speakable misery. It never thinks too much 
of self, is never pufifed up, and therefore 
keeps us from all danger of being hu- 
miliated. It never behaves itself unseemly,, 
and therefore saves us from the unhappy 
consequences of acting the fool. It is not 
always seeking its own and making us 
miserably selfish. It is not easily pro- 
voked, and therefore saves us from those 
outbreaks of temper that make so many of 
us unhappy. It does not suspect men, and 



Love The Law of Life 35 

so saves us from losing faith in humanity; 
It never takes delight in iniquity — a sen- 
sation which a man never has without be- 
coming more of a fiend than he was before. 
It finds joy in the progres of the truth. It 
bears and endures all things. It looks on 
the best side, and believes in the best that's 
in men. And it never ceases to hope. 

Great is love, for great is God. How 
may we come into possession of this gieat 
gift ? The answer is plain : By opening our 
hearts to God who is love. If we will lay 
ourselves entirely upon his altar, if we will 
receive him wholly into our hearts, he will 
come in and take possession of us. And 
when he is in possession, love will be in 
possession. 

But love is not a wild flower that best 
thrives beyond the touch of human hands. 
It is rather a rose that grows on to perfec- 
tion in proportion to the intelligent, sympa- 
thetic care that is bestowed upon it. If 



36 The Life Worth WMe 

love grows somebody must be the garden- 
er. We must cultivate it. We must con- 
tinue to cultivate it. There will never 
come a time when we can safely lay it by 
and leave it to care for itself. 

What can I do to cultivate my love ? Did 
you ever watch the development of love in 
the baby in your home? Your baby does 
not begin loving by loving everybody. He 
begins by loving his mother. And he 
begins loving his mother only after she has 
gently with her own hands, as it were, 
opened up his little heart to hers. Now 
watch love grow. When the mother is sure 
that her own image has found a place in the 
little heart she has opened, she brings be- 
fore that open heart day by day father, 
sister, brother, until the little one begins 
to love father and sister and brother. Then 
she begins to tell him about God, and by 
and by there comes before his little heart 
some vision of God that makes him as real 



Love The Law of Life 37 

as the face of his father, and he begins to 
love God. How does the baby learn to love 
mother, father, sister, brother, God? By 
learning them. By finding them out. By 
learning them better and better. It is a mat- 
ter of association — association with mother, 
father, sister, brother; association with the 
thought of God which the mother keeps 
continually before him. Break up this asso- 
ciation and the baby's love will grow cold. 
He may even cease in time to love his 
mother if she is taken out of his sight and 
her name is never uttered in his presence. 

It is in association that love is formed, 
and by association that love grows. 

So, if you and I want to love our fellow- 
men more we must associate with them 
more. We must learn them better. We 
must discover how lovable they are. We 
must learn how worthy they are of our con- 
fidence. And if we want to love God we 
must associate with him more. We must 



38 The Life Worth While 

learn him better. God has given us his 
Book in which to learn about him. He has 
given us this larger book — the book of na- 
ture — and on every leaf and every blade of 
grass he has written a chapter that tells of 
his love. What use do I make of my 
Bible? Do I read it to find out more about 
God? — to learn him better? Or do I read 
it only for conscience sake, or out of re- 
spect for the memory of my mother who 
taught me ta read it? What use do I make 
of the place of secret prayer — my meeting 
place with God? Do I go to it to seek 
his presence that I may know him better, 
or do I go to it merely to "say" my pray- 
ers? Do I cultivate God as I cultivate 
those whom I want to know better and 
love better? Do I value his companion- 
ship ? Shall I cultivate the neighbor whom 
I want to know better and stand afar off 
from God and expect him to perform some 



Love The Law of Life 39 

strange miracle that will help me to love 
him more? 

But is there nothing more that you and 
I can do to strengthen our love for God 
and for our f ellowmen ? Yes ; we can give 
expression to the love we already have. 
And this, it seems to me, is what we need 
to do most of all just now. O friend, let 
love have its way in your life. What though 
that way may seem foolish and extravagant 
to loveless hearts ! Loveless hearts are not 
our judges; God is our judge and God is 
love. Let love have its way. There is 
little enough of it in the world anyway, 
and if we repress the little we have there 
will soon be none at all. For love lives on 
loving deeds and loving words. Loving 
words, I mean, not merely sentimental 
words but words that are backed up by 
loving deeds. 

Let love have its way in your heart. If 
it impels you to some great deed do it. 



40 The Life Worth While 

Don't sit down and count the cost. Love 
has little liking for arithmetic. It despises 
your bargain counters. It will do things 
with a grand sweep or not at all. It is the 
only impulse we can afford always to fol- 
low. Love, I mean ; not mere gushing sen- 
timent. This may impel you to foolish 
things, but love never does. Love, I mean, 
the kind of love that God has for you and 
me, and the kind that you and I have for 
him in our highest moments. 

Let love have its way. Let the loving 
Marys pour out their hearts in precious 
gifts, and let no loveless Judases rebuke 
him. Never mind what the cold world 
says about it: if we repress our love out 
of respect for the cold world the cold world 
will freeze. We must warm the world back 
to life with our love. For this is what is 
the matter with the world to-day — there is 
so little love. And there is little love be- 
cause we make so little use of the love we 



Love The Law of Life 41 

have. Yonder is a man, who, a year ago 
took for granted that his wife ought to 
know his love for her without his telling 
her, and gradually left off expressing it 
either by words or deeds. To-day there is 
little love left in his heart to express. Over 
there is a boy, who, in the awkward, fool- 
ish years that must come to all boys, be- 
came ashamed to kiss his mother. He 
stopped, and to-day there is not enough 
love left to make him ever want to kiss her 
again. And yonder is a man who has 
smothered his impulse to show his love for 
God by some great sacrifice, some great 
deed of endurance, some hard, painful task ; 
and now he is never moved to do anything 
for God. Oh, if we would only give ex- 
pression to the love we have, how much 
more love we would have to express ! 



VI. 
A Heart At ReSl 

It is a common notion that peace is a 
pearl hidden in the path of Hfe, which 
some men dig for and others stumble upon. 
There are good people who wish for good 
luck that they might find this pearl in the 
road. They make themselves miserable 
looking for it. They strive and cry and 
their voices are heard in the streets for 
peace. But there is no peace. Into their 
storm-tossed lives no quiet ever comes. And 
yet all through the Bible there are prom- 
ises of peace for those who serve the Prince 
of Peace. "The Lord will bless his people 



A Heart At Reft 43 

with peace"; and again, "The work of 
righteousness shall be peace, and the effect 
of righteousness, quietness and assurance 
forever." Search the Book through and 
you will nowhere find that the Lord will 
afiflict his people with worry, or that the 
work of righteousness is fret and care, and 
the effect of righteousness a long face and 
a turbulent life forever. 

What is the secret of a life of peace? 

Of course the first essential is to make 
friends with the Prince of Peace. We must 
have a sense of pardon. "Therefore being 
justified by faith we have peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Chiist." But if the 
Prince of Peace is to come to our hearts 
we must give him a quiet place to dwell in. 
We must cultivate a peaceful frame of mind. 
If the peace of God is to keep our minds 
we must keep the peace. There are people 
who pray for peace who do not know what 
it is to hold their minds for a moment. 



44 The Life Worth While 

They are constantly committing crimes 
against the peace and dignity of the king- 
dom. They court a disturbance. They are 
never so happy as when they are distracted, 
or when they have run somebody else dis- 
tracted. They do not cultivate peaceful 
ways. They go plunging along without a 
thought of anybody else's toes ; they stand 
for their rights rather than for right; they 
never keep their side of the walk ; they 
must always have the last word. They 
pray for peace and refuse to budge an inch 
to escape a quarrel. They expect peace, 
but never try to pacify themselves or any- 
body else. 

If peace is to dwell within we must do 
what we can to keep the peace without. If 
we are to be at peace with God we must 
strive to live peaceably with all men. And 
we must cultivate the art of peacemaking. 
A man never gets less peace than he makes 
for others. 



A Heart At Re^ 45 

Again, if peace is to dwell within we 
must make room for it. Many a man has 
no peace mainly because of the crowded 
condition of his heart. Here is a heart that 
belongs to God. God's altar alone has a 
right there. While the affections are wholly 
fixed upon God there is peace. But in an 
evil hour there is erected by this altar an 
altar to Mammon. When Mammon comes 
in at the door peace flies out at the window. 
It is inevitable. When a man tries to wor- 
ship God and money at the same time, he 
is on the verge of brain fever. When he 
erects a third altar — ^an altar to fame, or 
appetite — the conflict becomes a ceaseless 
torment. It is this that keeps many a man 
tossing at night when he ought to be asleep. 
Nothing under heaven or in heaven can 
bring peace into our lives while the strange 
altars remain. 

It is only when we have made room in 
our hearts that we have an opportunity to 



46 The Life Worth WhUe 

test the promise, "Thou wilt keep him in 
perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee." 
There is little that can disturb a man whose 
thoughts are continually of God. "I will 
both lay me down in peace and sleep; for 
thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety." 
Whatever we may do, we will never rest 
quietly until we are conscious that the Lord 
is around about us as the walls are around 
about Jerusalem. 



VII 
The Way of Life 

The highest place in the kingdom of God 
is the place nearest to God. He is nearest 
to God whose thoughts, desires and plans 
revolve closest about God — ^who is most 
entirely given up to the service of God. 
The farthest ' point from God is the point 
where a man sets up a god of his own. He 
who revolves around self, who is given up 
to self-indulgence or to selfish interests, 
has made a god of self and is therefore be- 
yond the bounds of the kingdom of heaven- 
It is just as impossible to cherish self and 
God too as it is to revolve around two wide- 



48 The Life Worth While 

ly separated points at the same time. He 
who would be exalted in Christ^s kingdom 
must renounce self and devote himself 
v/holly to the service of Christ. It is not 
the best office-seeker but the most faithful 
servant who stands nearest his throne. 

It is not a matter for argument. It is a 
truth which lies deep in the world's con- 
sciousness. There is nothing which men 
so heartily despise as selfishness — in other 
people ; and there is nothing quite so beau- 
tiful in the eyes of the world as an unselfish 
spirit — in other people. The reign of sel- 
fishness means the destruction of all that is 
good and beautiful. A selfish child is re- 
pulsive, though it may have the face of a 
Madonna. There is absolutely no substi- 
tute for an unselfish spirit. The self-seek- 
ing habit makes us miserable and makes 
everybody around us miserable. The unsel- 
fish heart is a fountain of joy that is con- 
stantly overflowing upon the hearts within 



The Way oi Life 49 

its reach. What a benediction to the home 
is the unselfish child in the midst! If sel- 
fishness is outlawed in the kingdom of this 
world, how much more in the kingdom of 
God. 

The way to life, Jesus tells us, is not i 
through selfishness but through self-sacri- 
fice. The way to honor is through hu- 
mility. The way to authority is through 
service. He who saves himself — who counts 
himself very precious — comes to nothing. 
He who counts not his life dear unto him- 
self lives forever. ,, 

Even nature testifies to this great truth. 
Suppose a grain of wheat, for example, 
should choose to save itself. Suppose it 
should settle down in some safe, sunny 
place out of reach of hungry mouths, de- 
termined to preserve its golden coat and to 
dwell in peace and comfort. What would 
become of it ? It would simply abide alone. 
It would not multiply itself, it would do no 



50 The Life Worth While 

good, and it would eventually come to 
naught. So long as it cherished itself — so 
long as it sought its own comfort — it would 
be nothing but a grain of wheat. It would 
not live; it would simply exist. But sup- 
pose one day there should come to this 
little grain of wheat the ambition to be 
something, and to do something — the am- 
bition to live, to go abroad, to spread itself 
out, to clothe the fields in beauty, to feed 
men, to save life, to comfort the world. 
What course must it pursue ? Is there any 
way but the way of death? Would it not 
have to humble itself and drop into the 
ground, and allow itself to be covered up 
and lost sight of and forgotten and effaced 
— ^would it not have to endure the dark- 
ness, the dampness, the loathsomeness of 
the grave. 

How can I turn away from selfishness? 
There is but one way. Sometimes we say, 
"I am going, to give up this selfish habit; 



The Way of Life 51 

I am going to give up all selfish indul- 
gence ;" but before the day is over we have 
forgotten our resolution and we are as 
selfish as ever. The secret of our failure 
is in trying to turn away from selfishness 
without turning toward anything. We can- 
not turn away from everything. To turn 
away from one thing effectually, we must 
turn to another. If we would turn from 
seeking our own interests, we must turn to 
seek the interests of another. If we would 
turn from self, we must turn to God. If 
we will make him the center of our 
thoughts, our desires and our plans — if we 
will revolve around him day by day, we 
will not need to be concerned about our 
selfish habits; we will have no selfish 
habits. 

But can we do this by our own strength ? 
By no means. But when we come to this 
point we have an offer of strength. If a 
man would simply give up self-seeking, he 



52 The Life Worth While 

must depend on himself; but if he would 
turn from self to God, he may be sure of 
help from God. 



VIII. 
The Condition of Service 

The great condition of service is love. 
The highest preparation for service is love. 
Other things are needful but love is the es- 
sential. It is the one necessary thing. 
The Master did not say to Peter, "If you 
have a good common-school education," 
or "If you have had special theological 
training," or "If you have had unusual op- 
portunities in life," or "If you occupy such 
and such a social position," or "If you can 
arrange your business affairs so that you 
can give your time to my cause ;" he simply 
asked, "Do you love me ?" If Simon loved 



54 The Life Worth While 

him, then Simon could feed his lambs. 
What a world of encouragement there is 
here for the poor and the weak among the 
followers of Jesus. This or that talent may 
or may not help us to be of service to Jesus, 
but if we have love we can serve him, 
whatever we may lack. And so we do not 
need to take an inventory of our posses- 
sions or our opportunities to determine 
whether we can be of any service to Christ. 
We have only to take an inventory of our 
hearts. Have we love in our hearts for 
him? Love alone may not enable us to 
preach eloquent sermons, or to do this or 
that particular form of service, but love 
will enable us to serve the Master in some 
way that will be acceptable to him, and that 
is all we need to know about it. We may 
always be sure that, whatever may be our 
condition or our circumstances, if we real- 
ly love Christ we can be of some sort of 
service in his kingdom. 



The Condition of Service 55 

We can be and we may be. It is our 
privilege. Love for Christ gives us a right 
to serve him. If we love him, it matters not 
what may be our standing in the world, 
we have a right to be in his service; we 
have a right to a place in his vineyard. We 
may not have a right to this or that par- 
ticular place, but we have a right to a 
place. He may choose a high pulpit for 
the eloquent man who loves him; he may 
choose an honorable place in a hospital for 
the talented nurse who loves him ; he may 
not care to use us in either of these places, 
but if we love him we have a right to some 
place in his service. If we love him, we 
may serve him. 

And not only may, but must. Love 
brings its privileges, and it also brings its 
responsibilities. If I love Jesus my love 
not only gives me power to serve him, 
and I not only have the privilege of serving 
him, but it is my duty to serve him. Love 



56 The Life Worth While 

is compelling. It not merely impels us to 
give this or that for Jesus ; it compels us. 
The moment we refuse to obey the demands 
of love, that moment we begin to lose our 
love. If we love Christ and there are 
lambs— little ones, weak ones — to be fed, 
we must feed them. We cannot keep our 
love for Christ and not feed them. We 
must feed them or starve our own hearts. 
If we do feed them, we will feed our love. 
Love feeds the spirit of obedience, and 
obedience feeds love. The more we love 
Christ the more we will obey him, and 
the more we obey him, the more we will 
love him. 



IX 

The Secret of a Fruitful Life 

If we have a single worthy aim it is to be 
saved from an unfruitful life. We have a 
horror of barrenness here as we have a hor- 
ror of annihilation hereafter. In our better 
moments we feel that we would rather die 
than live at a poor dying rate, though in 
our ordinary moments we may be living at 
that rate. We detest the unfruitful man — 
the sluggard, the non-producer, the para- 
site — the dehumanized vagabond who does 
nothing because he is nothing. Where is 
the man with soul so dead who never to 
himself hath said, "Heaven helping me, I'll 
never be an encumbrance !" 



58 The Life Worth WWe 

"Now," says Jesus, "if you will abide in 
me I will save you from a barren existence. 
I will be to you as a vine to its branches; 
I will supply you with life, and life in such 
abundance that the making of fair blossoms 
in the shape of promises and plans will not 
-exhaust it, but you will be able to bring 
forth fruit to maturity." 

Here, then, is opened before us the way 
to the realization of our highest ambition. 
And it is the only way. "Severed from 
me," says Jesus, "you can do nothing. If 
you abide not in me you will be as helpless, 
as lifeless, as fruitless as a cut branch King 
upon the ground." There is no other alter- 
native. If we abide in Christ we shall bear 
fruit because he will supply us with life in 
such abundance that it will overflow in the 
form of the fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, 
peace, long-suflfering, and the rest — and in 
the form of good works. Our fingers will 
be restless with desire to work for him ; our 



The Secret of a Fruitful Life 59 

feet to carry messages for him. If we do 
not abide in him our efforts to be fruitful 
will be as futile as would be the efforts of 
a severed branch of the vine to bring forth 
grapes. 

How can we abide in him? If we have 
accepted him as our Savior and Lord, if 
we are resting on him, trusting him in all 
things and for all things, if our hearts are 
open wide to him so that his life may find 
its way through our whole being, then we 
are already abiding in him and he in us If 
this intimate relation is to continue un- 
broken several things are necessary. In 
the first place we must take the fact of our 
position into account in all of our conduct. 
We must "reckon" ourselves branches of 
the vine. If you have just grafted a twig 
upon a tree you will so reckon it ; you will 
be governed by the fact in your subsequent 
dealings with that twig. You will not hang 
a heavy weight upon it, nor will you pull 



60 The life Worth While 

it off and try to make it bear fruit by itself. 
You will have regard for the fact of its 
position. So in all our conduct we must 
have regard for the fact of our position as 
branches in the vine. In the second place 
we must have regard for the means of grace 
which help to keep the channels of com- 
munication open. We must open the Book 
and read Christ's word, and open our 
hearts to receive the word we read; and 
we must not only thus have him speak to 
us but we must speak to him. In the third 
place — and this is the condition upon which 
our Lord lays so much stress — ^we must 
continually obey him in love. If we are 
disobedient we are disloyal, and it is absurd 
to suppose that Jesus will set up his throne 
in a disloyal heart. Unless we love him 
with a love that obeys we can have no part 
with him. 



X 

The Thing That Counts with God 

With God the thing that counts is char- 
acter. We are always trying to persude 
ourselves that it is something else. When 
you and I were little children we thought 
that God would not let us perish because 
''it's me;" and somehow somewhat of that 
feeling clings to us yet. We feel that it is 
the "me" that counts. It has clung to the 
world from the beginning. Each race has 
felt that it was God's favorite race. Each 
family in a race has felt that it was God's 
favorite family. Each man in a family has 
felt that he was God's favorite man. We 



62 The Life Worth While 

Anglo-Saxons have indulged this conceit 
until we have become almost absurd in 
our own eyes. We are sure that we are the 
people, and that wisdom will die with us; 
that we live at that particular spot on earth 
upon which the eyes of God always rest; 
that we are the peculiar favorites of God 
because we are white in our faces, without 
regard to the color of our hearts, and be- 
cause we have Saxon blood in our veins, 
without regard to the condition of our 
blood. Reason about it with ourselves as 
we may we cannot quite bring ourselves to 
believe that God at this particular moment 
may be just as deeply interested in the 
black man or the brown man or the yellow 
man or the red man as he is in the white 
man. We cannot imagine how he can 
spend much time over the Eskimo or the 
Chinaman or the Fijian. We take for 
granted that his thoughts are with the 
Anglo-Saxons, and we are not quite sure 



The Thing That Counts with God 63 

but that his thoughts are more particularly 
with the Anglo-Saxons on this side of the 
sea. 

Not being very sure of our character we 
like to think that other things than char- 
acter count with God. We like to remem- 
ber our social position sometimes, and our 
family history. We persuade ourselves that 
we cannot perish because we have such 
good mothers — that we will be saved be- 
cause of our mothers' prayers, or because 
we live in a land of Bibles and gospel privi- 
leges and go to Sunday-school and to 
church and have been baptized and have 
had our names enrolled upon the church 
book, and all that. 

But God is no respecter of persons. "Man 
looketh on the outward appearance, but 
God looketh on the heart." Whatever a 
man may be, wherever he may live, what- 
ever may be his position in life, if he has 
character — if he fears God and keeps his 



64 The Life Worth WhUe 

commandments as he knows them — that 
man stands before God with as good an 
opportunity to reach the ear of God and to 
obtain the friendship and favor of God as 
he who has on his side all those things 
which cause the world to respect a man. 

If a man has character he is an approved 
candidate for the favor of the Lord. 



XI 

When a Man is Free 

"The truth shall make you free." But 
not truth as it is popularly understood, nor 
freedom as the Jews who listened to Jesus 
understood it. Jesus was accustomed to 
think on a high plane, and to use words in 
their higher meanings. He does not mean 
to say that what people ordinarily call 
truth in their everyday talk will make a 
man free indeed. We hear much of the 
scientist's search after truth. Every scientist 
regards himself as a truth-seeker, though 
lie may be only seeking to know the truth 
about bugs. But one may spend his life 



66 The Life Worth WhUe 

learning the truth about bugs and every 
other material thing up to the stars, and 
yet gain no freedom except freedom from 
ignorance about material things. Indeed,, 
we have seen enthusiasm for material truth 
utterly enslave a man, and so unfit him for 
the duties of life that he became a charge 
on his wife's hands. Jesus was speaking 
of the truth which came down from heaven 
— the eternal verities; the deep thoughts 
of God; the great truths about God and 
man, of man's relation to God, of God's 
love for man and his plans to save man — 
in a word, the things which the Master 
came from heaven to teach. "If ye con- 
tinue in these things," he says, "if ye receive 
these words of mine in your hearts and 
lives, and let them abide in you and work 
in you, then ye shall know the truth and 
the truth shall make you free." 

There is nothing in the knowledge of 
material truth to deliver a man out oi 



When a Man is Free 67 

spiritual bondage. Material truth has de- 
livered men out of material bondage — it 
has set men to inventing labor-saving ma- 
chinery, and doing things according to the 
best methods, and thus delivered them from 
being hewers of wood and drawers of 
water ; but it has never broken the smallest 
thread that has helped to hold the soul 
down. A man may become a walking cy- 
clopedia and remain a slave to sin. There 
is nothing in human experience to encour- 
age the idea that man is to be saved by 
education. He that would be delivered out 
of material bondage must learn material 
truth, but he that would be delivered from 
spiritual bondage must iearn spiritual 
truth. Learn the truth about material 
things — learn the great laws of the material 
world — and you shall be free from the slav- 
ery of superstition and hard, primitive 
modes of living. Learn the truth about the 
moral universe — the great laws of the 



68 The life Worth While 

spiritual world — and you shall be free from 
the slavery of sin; and then you shall be 
free indeed. 

But let there be no mistake. The free- 
dom which Jesus promises is the higher, 
spiritual freedom, just as the trutli he 
speaks of is the higher, spiritual truth. He 
does not promise that if we will become his 
disciples he will free us from physical bond- 
age — though the tendency of the gospel is 
to break chains of every sort. He does not 
promise to deliver us from the bondage of 
physical suffering or poverty or skeletons 
in the family closet — ^though he often does 
deliver men from each and all of these 
things. He does not promise to take us 
away from our present surroundings so 
that we will have no temptation to sin. But 
he does promise to deliver us from the 
power of sin, that we may rise above all 
these things even to the point of glorying 
in our infirmities. 



When a Man is Free 69 

And remember, it is not the truth by it- 
self — the abstract truth — that shall make us 
free ; it is the Son of Man who by the truth 
shall make us free. "If the Son, therefore, 
shall make you free, ye shall be free in- 
deed." 



XII 
The Worship of Success 

The god of yesterday was money. The 
^od of to-day is success. Within a decade 
men have come to worship success more 
than money. They would rather succeed in 
what they undertake — rather "get there," 
rather be known as a "winner" — than be 
rated at a million. Of course, most of us 
like both. We would rather succeed in 
getting money than in getting anything 
€lse; but the standard we have set up for 
ourselves is success, and we would rather 
succeed in whatever we undertake than 
anything else, whether the undertaking is 
ior money or not. 



The Worship of Success 71 

Is this new god we have set up any im- 
provement on the old? Are we not in as 
great danger in worshiping success as we 
have been in worshiping money? Is suc- 
cess the true aim of life? Is it not better 
to fail sometimes than to succeed al>vays? 
Is the successful game always worth the 
candle? Is success the true measure oi a 
man? 

It is well to pause and look at this matter 
from the standpoint of God himself as we 
have it in his Word. Take the case of 
David, for example. David wanted to b^nld 
God a house. It did not coincide with Je- 
hovah's plans and he did not build it. He 
failed in a thing that lay very near to his 
heart. But God honored him as highly as 
if he had carried out his heart's desire. He 
honored him for what he wanted to do, 
for what he purposed to do, for what he 
would have done if he could. God wants 
us to succeed in many of our undertakings, 



72 The Life Worth WMe 

but he would not have us look at achieve- 
ment as the true aim of life. The highest 
aim is not to come out a winner but to be 
faithful to the end. It is not so much what 
a man does as how he behaves in trying to 
do it. If he is faithful to God, if he would 
rather be right than be President, if he is 
faithful to his fellowmen, if he is faithful to 
his highest impulses, if he utterly refuses 
to sacrifice a principle or a friend or even 
an enemy that he may gain his end, it is not 
a great matter whether he achieves or not. 
He has succeeded in being a man if he has 
not succeeded in his undertaking. A man 
may succeed and be a great failure. A man 
may fail and be a great success. Moses 
failed to reach Canaan, but nobody calls 
Moses a failure. Nero succeeded in hav- 
ing his own way, but nobody calls Nero 
a success. Men have tried to be President 
and have failed and have gone down to 
their graves as America's greatest sue- 



The Worship of Success 73 

cesses. Men have tried to be President and 
succeeded and gone down to their graves — 
not as America's greatest successes. 

Let us engrave on our hearts the prec- 
ious truth that it is the privilege of every 
man, whatever his talents or opportunities, 
to be faithful; that he who is faithful is a 
success whether he succeeds in his under- 
takings or not ; that success is never worth 
achieving at the expense of one's faithful- 
ness ; that if one succeeds who has not been 
faithful the golden apple will turn to ashes 
between his teeth; that if he fails, having 
been faithful, he has the consciousness of 
the friendship of Him to whom he has been 
faithful. 



XIII 

Making A Choice 

To live is to choose. It is not a matter 
of choice whether one shall choose or not. 
We are continually coming to places where 
two roads meet, and we must choose be- 
tween them. We may choose what we will, 
but we cannot choose not to choose. 

The great question on the threshold of 
life is, What shall I choose? Suppose God 
should come and spread out before me all 
the treasures of heaven and earth — what 
would I choose ? What ought I to choose ? 
Certainly common sense teaches me that I 
ought to choose that which will satisfy me 



Making a Choice 75 

longest and that which I can never possibly 
regret. Now suppose we take these two 
rules and measure some of the things which 
are set before us. 

First, there is fame. There are two ques- 
tions to ask about fame : Will it satisfy me 
longer than anything else? Is it a choice 
which I can never possibly regret? These 
two questions are easily answered. I have 
never known a man who had achieved 
fame that did not feel in his latter years 
that the game was not worth the candle — 
that he had paid too dearly for his whistle. 
And I have never known a man who had 
struggled for fame who did not regret at 
some time that he had not chosen another 
sphere of life. A man enters politics to 
become famous. In the struggle which 
follows he neglects his own private affairs 
and becomes overwhelmed with debt. Then 
he realizes that instead of becoming famous 
fae is in imminent danger of becoming in- 



76 The Ufe Worth While 

famous, and he begins to say to himself, 
that he would rather have money than all 
the fame in the world. He is sure that if 
a man has money he can do anything. 

But suppose I choose money? Will 
money satisfy me longer than anything 
else? Is the pursuit of wealth a choice 
which I can never possibly regret. A man 
who feels that money is king starts out to 
earn it by hook or by crook. And he earns 
it by hook and crook. He thinks that if 
he can get enough money he can do any^ 
thing, but in the struggle he brings a stain 
upon his name and his family is ostracized. 
Then he struggles harder, not because he 
cares for money, but because he hopes that 
if he can get a little more the world will be 
persuaded that his wife and children are 
respectable, and give him the social posi- 
tion he so much desires. He would rather 
be accounted respectable than have all the 
money in the world, and he dies regretting 



Making a Choice 11 

that instead of starting out to get rich he 
had not started out to secure the respect of 
his fellowman. 

But suppose I choose social position? 
Will it satisfy me longer than anything 
else? Is the pursuit of a high place in so- 
ciety a choice which I can never possibly 
regret? It all looks very beautiful at a dis- 
tance but who that has risen to that exclu- 
sive circle that soars far above the heads 
of ordinary people, has not grown weary 
of its demands, weary of its shallowness, 
weary of its heartlessness, and has longed 
for some obscure quiet spot where he could 
dwell under his own vine and fig-tree with 
none to molest or make him afraid? 

There are a dozen other things which 
one might choose — not one that will con- 
tinue to satisfy ; not one the choice of which 
we will not eventually regret — if we choose 
it as the chief thing. Among all the 
treasures spread out before mortal man 



78 The Life Worth While 

there is but one that will satisfy him for- 
ever, one the choice of which (as the chief 
thing) he can never regret. 

What is this one Supreme Treasure? 

If I choose Christ as my savior and lord 
— if I open my heart to him ; if I enthrone 
him in my heart as my king; if I allow 
myself to be dominated by him — I shall 
be satisfied, and I shall be satisfied for- 
ever. It matters not what may happen, 
the Spirit-filled life is the one continually 
satisfying thing. And since the beginning 
of time no man who has made this choice 
has ever been known to regret it. 



XIV 
My Two Natures 

Here are two natures, the flesh and the 
spirit — the lower nature that is given up to 
the gratification of the senses, and the high- 
er nature that reaches out after spiritual 
things. These two natures are utterly con- 
trary to each other. They cannot dwell 
together; they have nothing in common 
with each other. To feed the one is to 
starve the other. To lift up the one is to 
pull down the other. One must rule su- 
preme, and the question which every man 
must decide is which one. Shall I look 
after my lower nature — follow where it 



80 The Life Worth While 

leads, seek to fulfill its desires — or shall I 
give myself to my higher nature? 

Paul says that I am not a debtor to my 
lower nature; what I owe, I owe to the 
higher. "I am a debtor not to the flesh, 
but to the spirit." He does not mean to 
say that I do not owe food to my body, 
that I should not take care of my body, but 
that I am under no obligation whatever 
to gratify the tendencies of my lower na- 
ture. Why should I gratify these tenden- 
cies when they all lead to death? Why 
should I give myself up to that which must 
die, and which must eventually bring me to 
eternal death ? I have no obligation in this 
direction. There is no reason in the world 
why I should give myself up to the grati- 
fication of the desires of my lower nature. 
My lower nature is my enemy. It pulls me 
downward. If I follow where it leads it 
will eventually lead me down to eternal 
death. 



My Two Natures 81 

On the other hand my spiritual nature — 
this spirit within me which yearns after the 
spiritual — is my friend. Its tendency is up- 
ward. It aspires after the Great Spirit. It 
is the best of me. My lower nature is 
<ieath. My higher nature is life. It reaches 
out after God ; and when my spirit is united 
with the Spirit of God, all its aspirations 
and movements are toward God and to- 
ward eternal good. Following the desires 
of my lower nature I shall find death; 
following the aspirations of my higher na- 
ture I shall find life. If God so loved me 
as to give his Son to come down into the 
world and condemn this lower nature, and 
put his Spirit in my heart, and give me 
power to gain the victory over this lower 
nature, and to live according to his Spirit, 
and to become a son of God, then surely 
all my obligations are toward my higher 
nature. The business of my life is to feed 
my higher nature. The business of my life 



82 The Life Worth WhHe 

is to mind the things of the Spirit and not 
the things of the flesh ; to think the highest, 
noblest thoughts ; to aspire after the high- 
est things ; to walk after the pattern which 
God has given me in the life of his Son; 
to give myself up to thinking, feeling, as- 
piring, acting on the highest spiritual plane. 
He who does this is a son of God. So 
long as I follow the tendencies of my lower 
nature I am a slave, and the chains tighten 
about me as I go on downward. If I will 
let Christ come into my heart ; if I will turn 
my back upon sin ; if I will choke to death 
these lower desires ; if I will open my 
heart to be led by the Spirit of God — ^he 
will not only set me free, but he will adopt 
me as his own son. "For as many as are 
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons 
of God." 



XV 
The Vidorious Life 

Here are two young men who have 
started out to be Christians. They are both 
honest in their purpose and equally in ear- 
nest. Both go regularly to church and 
Sunday-school, both read their Bibles 
daily, and both are frequent in prayer. Yet 
to one life is a long drawn-out battle; to 
the other life has its battles, but it also has 
its victories. To one the effort to live a 
Christian life is one continual strain ; to the 
other there is a joyful consciousness in the 
midst of every struggle of an arm uphold- 
ing and helping him. One pauses now and 



84 The Life Worth While 

then to wipe the sweat from his brow, and 
to ask whether after all life is worth living ; 
the other cries, "For me to live is Christ; 
to die is gain." One cries out in despair: 
"Who shall deliver me from the body of 
this death?" The other shouts as he runs: 
"Thanks be to God who giveth us the vic- 
tory through our Lord Jesus Christ." One 
weeps with bowed head; the other may 
weep, but with upturned face toward the 
Sun of Righteousness. To one the Chris- 
tian life is a burden ; to the other it is a tri- 
umph. 

What is the secret of the difference be- 
tween these two young men? Simply this. 
One has repented of his sins and has started 
out with the determination to lead a new 
life. He knows not how to lead a new life 
except by his own strength, and he starts 
out trusting in his own will-power. He be- 
lieves in Christ as the Savior of men, and 
he believes that if he is faithful unto the 



The Vidtorious Life 85 

end Christ will save him at the end. He 
has accepted Christ as his lord, his king, 
his ruler, but he thinks of him as a king 
sitting upon a throne in heaven. In a 
word, he believes in Christ as a future Sa- 
vior. The other has repented of his sins, 
and started out with equal determination 
to lead a new life, but he realizes at the 
beginning that there is no use trying if he 
must depend upon his own feeble arm. He 
has tried that before. He cannot be his 
own savior, and there has come to him the 
blessed revelation that the Christ in whom 
he has been asked to believe is not merely 
the lord, the ruler, the king of men, but 
that he has come into the world to be the 
present Savior of men; that while he re- 
turned to heaven after the resurrection, he 
descended again in the person of the Holy 
Spirit; that the Holy Spirit present in the 
world and in the hearts of men to-day is 
the present Christ. He has realized that 



86 The Ufe Worth While 

Jesus, the all-sufficient Savior from all sin, 
is at his right hand ready to enter into his 
heart, to take possession of his life, to 
strengthen every nerve and every muscle, 
to fight for him and through him, to over- 
come his temptations, to give strength to 
him in his weariness, to give health to him 
in his sickness, and to enlighten him in his 
darkness. He has realized that Christ, the 
complete satisfier of all his wants, is at his 
side ready to meet all his deficiencies, and 
to be his sufficiency in all things ; and he 
has opened his heart and given himself up 
to Christ his present Savior, And so in the 
hour of weakness, instead of fainting and 
crying out in despair, he looks up and 
claims Christ's strength and Christ gives 
him strength. In the hour of temptation, 
instead of entering into the fight single- 
handed he turns his eyes toward Christ 
and claims the promise of his strength for 
the hour of temptation, and the strength of 



The Vidtorious Life 87 

Christ takes possession of him, and fights 
his battle and wins his victory. He has his 
struggles, he has his heartaches, he has his 
sorrows, but in all things he has the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. 



XVI 
A Well Armed Man 

Here is a young man who is making a 
brave effort to live a noble life. He has 
accepted Christ and he is struggling to 
keep true to his profession. But every- 
thing is against him. His friends are all 
trying to lead him astray. He is teased 
continually. He cannot even say his pray- 
ers in peace. Every imp of Satan is point- 
ing his finger at him. He is persecuted 
for Christ's sake just as truly as the early 
Christians were persecuted. Then, too, he 
is struggling with all sorts of temptations. 
The boys are going off to have a good 



A Well Armed Man 89 

time. He knows what that good time 
means. He has been with them before and 
he knows that a Christian cannot have that 
sort of a good time. Yet, he wants to go. 
There are many things that make it a hard- 
ship to stay behind, and it is hard to say 
"no." Every day he meets some new temp- 
tation, and sometimes he overcomes it and 
sometimes it overcomes him. He is con- 
scious that he is too weak for the battle. 
He needs a stronger armor of defense. 
What is the strongest defensive armor for 
a persecuted young man ? You will find it 
in I Peter iv:2: 

"Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered 
for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise 
with the same mind." 

Sometimes we arm ourselves with good 
resolutions. Sometimes we arm ourselves 
with the thought that it is too cowardly to 
go back after starting out for Christ. Some- 
times we strengthen our backbone by ask- 



90 The Life Worth While 

ing what So-and-so will say? But these 
things are not strong enough for times of 
real persecution. There is but one thing 
that is strong enough : it is to be armed 
with the mind which Christ armed him- 
self. Just as our Lord, when he was about 
to come down among us, determined out of 
pure love for us, to suffer even unto death 
ioT our sakes, so we should arm ourselves, 
out of pure love for him, with the determi- 
nation to suffer even unto death for his 
sake. The reason why it is so hard to bear, 
to endure, to suffer hardships for Christ is 
because we have never settled this matter 
in our own minds. Our love for him has 
tiever moved us to decide that we would 
suffer for him even unto death. Because 
Christ loved us he determined to suffer 
tmto death for us. Having settled this mat- 
ter at the beginning he bore the sufferings 
which came upon him almost as a matter 
of course. It never occurred to him to 



A Well Armed Man 91 

cry out, "How much more shall I en- 
dure?" He never exclaimed, "When will 
patience cease to be a virtue!" No man 
ever heard him say, "I am willing to bear 
my part, but enough of a thing is enough." 
He did not come to us with the intention 
of drinking as much of the cup of suffer- 
ing as he could and letting the rest go. He 
came determined to drink the very dregs. 
And he drank the dregs. 

This is the spirit which you and I must 
have if we are going to quit ourselves like 
men. We have played baby long enough. 
We have had no strength to endure simply 
because we have had no mind for it. Our 
mind has been to run from suffering, and 
when we were overtaken to cry as babies 
cry. If Christ had set his mind on him- 
self rather than on us he, too, would have 
cried out. If we will set our minds on him 
rather than on ourselves we will count it a 
privilege to be permitted to suffer for his 



92 The Life Worth WhHe - 

sake. Is the idea clear? The bottom sec- 
ret is love. That young man is happy when 
he is permitted to suffer for the woman he 
loves — if he loves her. That mother is 
happy to suffer for the child she loves — ^if 
she loves him. That man is happy to suffer 
for the Christ he loves — if he really loves 
him. 



XVII 
Consecration vs. Annihilation 

It is a common notion that consecration 
is the equivalent of annihilation. We are 
in the habit of saying that men hesitate to 
give themselves wholly to God because 
they are afraid it will cost them their pleas- 
ure, but there are many who hesitate out of 
fear that it will cost them their very exist- 
ence. We know good people who hold on 
to an uncomfortable position with one foot 
on the altar and the other on the earth lest 
if they should lift the other foot on the 
altar they would literally cease to be. They 
share the common instinct that shudders at 



94 The Life Worth While ' 

the thought of dropping into oblivion, and 
they have not advanced to that refinement 
of ambition that seeks to be absorbed in 
Nirvana. 

The phraseology, if not the teaching, of 
certain modern apostles of the higher life 
is perhaps largely responsible for the preva- 
lence of this notion. We are told that when 
we surrender ourselves to the Lord we re- 
sign in his favor and that he immediately 
assumes our place and does our work for 
us. We are to give up everything, even to 
trying. We are to stand still with our 
eyes closed, and wait for the Holy Spirit to 
hypnotize us and lead us by an irresistible 
influence. And we are assured that if we 
will stand very still and keep perfectly quiet 
and not peep, we will surely feel this influ- 
ence, just as a blindfolded man is said to 
feel an impulse in the particular direction 
agreed upon by the mesmerists who place 
their hands upon him. 



Consecration vs. Annihilation 95 

The chief trouble about this sort of teach- 
ing is that it is not scriptural. God is our 
sufficiency, and we are nowhere taught that 
he is our substitute. When we consecrate 
ourselves to him we are not asked to re- 
nounce our names, to drop ourselves into 
the sea of oblivion, and to cast the talents 
he has given us to the winds. When we 
come to God we bring to him the work- 
manship of his own hands. God is not ex- 
travagant. He does not make men and 
then throw them away. He does not give 
us the power to do a thing and then insist 
that we shall throw away that power and 
look to him to do it. The Holy Spirit 
comes not to take the place of what we 
have, but to meet all our deficiencies. In 
consecrating ourselves to God we need not 
fear that we will have to give up anything 
that he has given us. A consecrated man 
is not less than a man, but more. 



XVIII 
The Source of Power 

Stripped of all technicalities, enthusiasm, 
mysticism and hair-splitting, the doctrine 
of the Holy Spirit is that Jesus has prom- 
ised that the Father will give to those of us 
who obey him in love "another Comforter," 
who shall abide with us, and be to us for 
all time what Jesus himself was to his dis- 
ciples during his earthly ministry. In a 
word, if we obey him in love we shall have 
no occasion to envy the disciples who saw 
him in the flesh, for the Holy Spirit will be 
to us a present Christ and he will abide 
with us forever. 



The Source of Power 97 

Let us see if we can realize what this 
means. Here are a hundred and twenty 
followers of Jesus — plain, obscure men and 
women praying and waiting. Well may 
they wait, for there is no one in the entire 
band who has the power to take the first 
step in the great work which the Master 
has planned for them. And well may they 
pray, for if the power they need does not 
come from heaven there is no hope that it 
will come from anywhere else. There is no 
man in authority who is going to throw the 
weight of his influence in their behalf; 
there is no powerful organization coming 
to their help; there is no hope that they 
will have the aid of the influence that comes 
from wealth or social position. They are 
set apart for a great work; they are to be 
the instruments of supernatural power; but 
now they are powerless. They are but dead 
wires. 

Suddenly the Holy Spirit enters their 



98 The Life Worth While 

hearts. It is like the rushing of an electric 
current into a wire that has been prepared 
to furnish light and power. Before the 
current is turned on the wire is dead; the 
next moment the electric fluid bursts into 
dazzling light and sets every wheel going. 
But a little while ago they forsook their 
Master in his hour of trial. A little while 
ago Peter found himself too weak to endure 
the scorn of a servant girl. A little while 
ago they were not bold enough to whisper 
the name of the Master outside of the upper 
room. They did not have the courage; 
they did not have the knowledge ; they did 
not have the magnetism ; they did not have 
anything which they peculiarly needed for 
their work. Now the men who fled from 
Gethsemane to escape arrest go forth and 
arrest the attention of the great multitude 
that would have crucified them with their 
leader. Now even Peter, who had denied 
his Master and backed up his denial by 



The Source of Power 99 

oaths, stands forth as strong as a giant, and 
dares to charge the men of Jerusalem with 
slaying his Lord. 

What does all this mean. Simply that 
the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father, 
is our light and our power; that without 
him, whatever may be our equipment, we 
are but dead wires ; that with him we may 
have all the light and the power we need. 
Yesterday we went forth to the day's tasks, 
praying that we might walk as Christ our 
example would have us walk. There came 
a time when we did not know which way to 
turn ; we needed light. There came a time 
when we grew weak in the face of duty; 
another moment, and we stumbled from 
sheer weakness of soul. All the day long 
we denied our Master; not in so many 
words like Peter, and yet we denied him, 
for all the day long our actions said that 
we di<J not know Jesus. Last night we wept 
bitterly on our pillows and wondered if to 

LOFC. 



100 The Life Worth While 

live means to fail in everything we try to 
do. What was the matter? We were but 
dead wires. What will give us courage for 
to-day? What will give us light that we 
may not stumble in the way? To whom 
shall we go but to him who has promised 
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who 
will guide us into all truth? 



XIX 
The Lowly in Heart 

Humility was a rare virtue among the 
Jews in Jesus' day. The seeds of vanity 
and conceit diligently sown by the rabbis 
through generations had yielded a nation 
of coxcombs. One true-blue Jew, to their 
thinking, was worth more in the sight of 
God than all the heathen on the face of the 
earth. The Jews of Judea were better than 
the Jews of Galilee ; the rich Jews were bet- 
ter than the poor Jews; the elders were 
better than the people, and every Jew was 
better than every other Jew. The most un- 
attractive thing about Jesus was his humil- 



102 The Life Worth While 

ity. Even his disciples were slow to take 
his yoke upon them and learn of him, for 
they did not want to learn that he was 
meek and lowly in heart. 

Breathing such an atmosphere, it was 
natural that the chosen twelve should allow 
themselves to think that they were superior 
to the other disciples, and it was just as 
natural that James and John should imag- 
ine that they were worthy of greater honors 
than the rest of the twelve. And why 
should not their mother think so too? 

But the very fact that it was natural made 
it all the more dangerous, and our Lord 
lost no time in showing these men their 
peril and pointing out a better way. Such 
a spirit, he told them plainly, was of the 
earth earthly. Heathen kings were accus- 
tomed to contend for place and to lord it 
over men, and among little men of the 
world the man who lorded it over others 
was called a benefactor; but that was not 



The Lowly in Hrart 103 

the way in which it would be looked upon 
in his kingdom. There is no greatness in 
sticking one's self upon a pedestal to re- 
ceive the enforced homage of the great or 
the voluntary homage of the small. No 
man is great who calls himself great, or 
insists on being regarded as great. The 
ambition to lord it over others is born only 
in small men. True greatness shows it- 
self in service. It is service. In the eyes of 
God and in the judgment of all good men 
the man who sets himself up, sets himself 
up because he is too small to be seen other- 
wise. That man is great who serves and 
thereby deserves to be enshrined in the 
hearts of the people, whether -he is en- 
shrined or not. In a word, that rnan is 
great who most resembles Christ, the ser- 
vant of men. 

But let us make no mistake about Christ. 
He is our humble servant, not a humiliated 
servant. The picture of the Master wash- 



104 The Life Worth While 

ing his disciples' feet is a picture of hu- 
mility, not a picture of humiliation. It is 
strange that we should so often mistake one 
for the other when there is no real resem- 
blance between them. Many a young man 
will not come to Christ because he has got 
it into his head that a life of service is 
inimicable to one's self-respect. Humility 
is not a stooping to unworthy things ; it is 
not that spirit which leads us to do any- 
thing we are ashamed of. It is simply love 
having its way in lowly spheres. Jesus 
washed his disciples' feet because he loved 
his disciples to the uttermost. If you love 
your child a little you will serve him in 
some things, but you will have a servant to 
attend to lowly duties. But if you love 
your child unto the uttermost you will find 
delight in serving him in lowly ways; and 
when he is very sick and your love is there- 
by drawn out to the utmost you will want 
to do the utmost for him with your own 



The Lowly in Heart 105 

hands ; and you will delight in doing for 
him things which you would be ashamed 
to do for one whom you loved less. Hu- 
mility has no connection with shame ; where 
shame is there is only humiliation. 

Again, humility is opposed to ostenta- 
tion. Strangely enough this act of Jesus 
has been interpreted as a theatrical exhi- 
bition. We are given to interpreting other 
people's acts by our own feelings, and we 
remember how on one occasion when there 
was an humble duty to perform and every- 
one shrank from it — ^we remember how we 
stepped forward and said that we would 
like for them to know that we were not 
too proud to do it. But when we put such 
a thought as this in the mind of Jesus the 
story loses all of its beauty and becomes a 
pitiful exhibition of vanity. Humility dies 
the moment it begins to advertise. Nay, it 
dies with the thought of advertising. The 
proudest man among us is the man who is 



106 . The Life Worth While 

always reminding people how humble he 
is ; for the proudest man living is the man 
who is proud of his humility. 



XX 
Heart Queftions About Prayer 

If I were asked what is the most pitiful 
picture that human eyes ever looked upon 
I would doubtless recall a certain vision of 
a poor little baby waif — ^a tiny castaway 
who had no mother's eyes into which it 
might look. But if I should take time to 
consider it would probably come to me that 
after all the case of this little castaway is 
not the most pitiful in the world. It is not 
so pitiful, for example, as that of a big, 
full-grown man I know who, in his hours 
of helplessness, has no Heavenly Father's 



108 The life Worth While 

eyes into which he may look. That man 
is the world's most wretched castaway. 

A baby must look up into its mother's 
eyes or into the eyes of one who may take 
the mother's place; denied this privilege 
it will soon cease to live. A man must look 
up into the face of God ; denied this privi- 
lege he is already dead. 

This looking up into the face of God is 
what we call prayer. For prayer, when we 
come to think of it, is simply conscious 
helplessness looking up to the source of 
help. It is not a matter of words. It is 
true we are accustomed to say that prayer 
is the language of faith ; but faith, like love, 
can speak without the tongues of men or 
of angels. Prayer is not the mere saying 
of one's little speech to God on set occa- 
sions. It is the very breath of one's life — 
the outpouring of the heart's desire and the 
heart's gratitude continually to God. We 
do not know the meaning of prayer until 



Heart Qye^ons About Prayer 109 

we have formed the habit of breathing out 
toward God. 

There are two familiar texts which, if 
kept in mind, will answer nearly all the 
questions our hearts are asking about 
prayer. 

The first is the assurance of the Psalm- 
ist : ''Like as a father pitieth his children so 
the Lord pitieth them that fear him." How 
does a wise, loving father who has unlim- 
ited means to do as he wishes treat his 
children? We know that there are many 
things which he is glad to do for his most 
wayward children. He will see that they 
have food and clothing, and he will do 
much to keep them out of trouble and 
everything to get them out of trouble when 
they have fallen in. But there are many 
things which he loves to do for his obedient 
children. A loving, obedient boy can go to 
such father with perfect confidence that his 
father is always ready to do the best for 



no The Life Worth While 

him. He does not give him everything he 
asks for because he knows the boy better 
than the boy knows himself, and he is more 
concerned over his boy's welfare than his 
boy is concerned for himself. But if he 
does not do what his boy wants he does 
not turn a deaf ear to his cry. He will seek 
other ways to satisfy him and often he 
delights in doing far more for him than 
he has hoped for. He is not going to give 
him anything that will hurt him. If he 
asks for bread he will not mock him by 
giving him a stone. If he asks for whole- 
some food, as a fish or an egg, he will not 
give him a serpent or a scorpion to poison 
him. Like as a father pitieth his children so 
the Lord pitieth them that fear him. Recall 
the questions you have been asking about 
prayer and look at them in the light of this 
saying. Will God hear us when we cry? 
Yes ; for he is our Father. Will he give us 
everything that we ask for ? No ; for he is 



Heart Qye^ons About Prayer 1 1 ! 

our Father. Why does God allow the sun 
to shine and the rain to fall upon the unjust 
as well as the just? Because God is our 
Father. Does God make a difference so 
that those who obey him may go to him 
with the assurance which one who does not 
obey him cannot have? Yes; for God is 
our Father. You and I can trust a wise 
and loving father who has unlimited means 
to do all that his love and wisdom prompt 
him to do. Can we not trust God who is 
our wise and loving Father and who has 
unlimited means to do all that his love and 
wisdom prompt him to do ? 

The other text is from Hebrews vii : 25 : 
"Seeing he ever liveth to make intercession 
for them." Does God hear my prayer? 
Does he understand my case? Does he 
know my circumstances? Does he think 
of my needs ? Alas ! my prayers are not 
worth hearing, and I don't understand my 
own case, and I am thinking of my wishes 



\\2 The life Worth WMe 

rather than my needs. What hope is there 
that a poor mortal may enter for one mo- 
ment into the thought of God? One may 
answer, God is love and therefore he does 
not forget. But there are times when the 
throne of God seems so far off, and I say, 
"Oh, if I only had some one to look after 
my case at court !" That is just what Christ 
is doing in heaven to-day. "He ever liveth 
to make intercession." He is there with 
our cases on his heart and on his mind. 
He is there to represent us. He is there 
to plead with the Father for us. He comes 
between us and the Father, not to separate 
us, indeed, not because the Father would 
not draw near to us, but to bind us to- 
gether. He is our high priest. I do not 
understand that this means that God our 
Father is far away from us, that we need 
to have a representative at court lest he 
should forget us, that he would not under- 
stand our cases if Christ did not tell him 



Heart Qyeitions About Prayer 1 1 3 

all about us ; it simply means that we need 
not have the slightest fear concerning God 
as to whether he will hear our prayer, or 
whether he understands our case, or wheth- 
er he knows our circumstances, or whether 
he enters into our needs ; but we may pray, 
if we pray as we ought, with perfect assur- 
ance that our petitions will not fall short 
of his ear. If our case is peculiar, we may 
be sure that he knows it, for we have an 
Advocate at court. If we have any real 
need we may be sure that he knows what 
it is, "for he ever liveth to make interces- 
sion." 



XXI 
Judging Others 

There are at least four good reasons why 
we should not sit in judgment upon others^ 
In the first place, we are unfit to be judges, 
for the reason that we look on the out- 
ward appearance and not on the heart. In 
the second place, the habit of judging peo- 
ple destroys the spirit of charity, and feeds 
the flame of hate within us. In the third 
place, it blinds us more and more to our 
own faults. In the fourth place, it is utter- 
ly futile, for the reason that we look for 
faults in others, hoping thereby to minify 
or blot out our own. After all, why should 



Judging Others 1 1 5 

we judge others when we have so many 
faults ourselves ? It is notorious that those 
who are so quick to speak of the motes 
in other people's eyes have great, blinding 
beams in their own eyes. It is the fault- 
finder who is fullest of faults. Why should 
we be so deeply concerned about other 
people's motes and so little concerned about 
our own beams? Will pulling motes out 
of other people's eyes get the beams out 
of our own? Nay, nay; let us be a little 
selfish until he have — to change the figure 
— swept before our own doors. Let us get 
the beams out of our own eyes and then 
shall we see clearly to pull the mote out 
of our brother's eye; though it is likely, 
when we are able to see how small the 
mote is, we will not be so bent on getting 
it out. 

But Jesus would not have us go to the 
other extreme of exaggerated charity, 
which some superior saints affect. He 



116 The Life Worth WMc 

would not have us so charitable that we 
would refuse to see the wolf that comes to 
us often hidden in sheep's clothing. He 
would not have us hide our eyes from the 
cloven foot when the devil comes to us an 
angel of light. He does not ask the good 
mother to imagine that the vile scab who 
wants to visit her daughter is every inch a 
gentleman. He would not have us under 
obligations to show our charity for show- 
people of doubtful character by giving 
them the encouragement of our presence, 
even if the ticket costs us nothing. He does 
not move the hearts of fair women to send 
bouquets and perfumed notes to condemned 
murderers. We are not to turn away from, 
our own faults and look for the faults of 
others, but on the other hand, we must not 
turn away from the fact that if the fruit is 
not good the tree is corrupt. 



XXII 

How Often Shall I Forgive? 

It is not a question of mathematics ; it 
is a question of love. Love does not take 
note of its own good deeds or of another's 
evil deeds ; it is malice that keeps a memo- 
randum of such things. It is not enough 
to forgive a man seven times or seventy 
times seven. What Jesus wants is the spirit 
that cherishes no evil against any man, that 
refuses to harbor any bitterness, and is al- 
ways ready and always seeking to live in 
love and charity with all men. There is 
never an occasion for asking how often one 
shall forgive, when one shall forgive, or 



118 The Life Worth While 

under what circumstances one shall for- 
give. The only question is, Shall I at any 
time, or under any circumstances, or for the 
smallest moment, admit into my heart any 
ill-feeling toward my neighbor? Never! 
says Jesus. And he gives us a reason. We, 
too, are offenders, and we are looking to 
God continually for forgiveness. And he 
forgives us. If our Father in heaven, who 
is too holy to look upon sin, can forgive 
us, utterly unworthy as we are, surely we 
cannot afford to refuse to forgive any one 
of his creatures. 

It is sometimes said that we are not re- 
quired to forgive other until they ask our 
forgiveness, because God does not forgive 
us until we ask forgiveness, and God would 
not require us to go further than he does. 
But who are we that we should thus com- 
pare ourselves with God? Who are we 
that we should put on such fine airs and 
think ourselves so high and of such dignity 



How Often Shall I Forgive? 1 19 

that those who offend us must fall at our 
feet and sue for mercy, as if they had of- 
fended their creator, upon whom they were 
dependent for every need? The man who 
offends me is my brother — my equal — not 
my servant, who receives his life and all 
that he has from my hands. And I — given 
as I am to offending others, and the more 
given to offending God himself — why 
should I stand at a great distance and curl 
the lip with scorn and declare that I will 
not forgive my enemy until he comes and 
sues for peace? Why should I set myself 
up as a superior being, whose offended dig- 
nity can only be satisfied by the humiliation 
of the offender? 

But even admitting that we are at lib- 
erty to enthrone ourselves above our ene- 
mies and require them to come to us and 
plead for forgiveness, as we say God re- 
quires of his enemies, it may be further an- 
swered that while God does not pardon 



120 The Life Worth While 

those who refuse to ask for pardon, he 
never for a single moment cherishes in his 
heart the feeUngs which you and I are dis- 
posed to cherish against those whom we 
refuse to forgive. If we wish to follow 
God in the matter of forgiving our enemies, 
let us follow him in this : let us keep from 
our hearts all bitterness against the offend- 
er and seek continually, as God by his Holy 
Spirit seeks, to win the offender to our 
hearts. 



XXIII 
The Unruly Member 

When you and I grow old we are going 
to sit down some day and say : "I've had 
a good many troubles in my time, but after 
all I am responsible for most of them my- 
self." And some of us are going to add: 
"Most of the troubles which I brought 
upon myself came through my tongue and 
my temper." This is what nearly all the 
old people we know have learned, now that 
they have grown old. The pity of it is that 
they did not learn it while they were young. 
Why may you and I not learn it while we 
are young? 



122 The Life Worth While 

A large part of the trouble that comes to 
the average man or woman in a life time 
comes through the tongue or the temper. 
If this is true surely one of the most vital 
questions you and I can ask is, How can 
I get control of my tongue and my tem- 
per? 

Jesus tells us how. 

As for the tongue, he says, the impor- 
tant thing is to let one's communications 
be, Yea, yea ; nay, nay. He does not mean 
that we should confine our speech to yes 
and no. This old world would be insuf- 
ferable if the followers of Jesus did that. 
What he means is that we should say yes 
when we mean yes and no when we mean 
no, and not seek to bolster up our yes or no 
with oaths or lies or extravagances of any 
sort. In a word we should rule our ton- 
gues and not let them rule us. James dwells 
upon this idea in his epistle. If your tongue 
rules you, he says, it will ruin you; if you 



The Unruly Member 123 

rule it, it will be a blessing to you and to 
all around you. For this little member is 
a tremendous power — like the little bit with 
which we manage horses, and the little 
rudder with which we guide ships. You 
might harness up every muscle of a horse 
to the big wheel of an engine, and you 
could not, with all the steam power you 
could use, manage him so well as you could 
manage him with a tiny bit in his mouth; 
nor could a thousand men do for a ship 
what one little rudder under the control of 
one man could do. It is a frightful thing 
to see a horse running away, with the reins 
on the ground; it is pitiful to see a great 
ship tossing helplessly about in the sea 
without a rudder. But it is both frightful 
and pitiful to see a man's tongue tossing 
to and fro, or running away for want of 
somebody to control it. The tongue is a 
little thing, but in its very littleness lies 
much of its danger. It is like the spark 
that kindles the flame that burns a city. 



124 The Life Worth While 

The world has had so much good advice 
concerning the abuse of the tongue that 
some pious folk have concluded that this- 
little member is an incurably wicked thing, 
put into the world for no good purpose ex- 
cept to exercise patience in holding it. 
There are many really good people whose- 
highest ambition in life is to be able to hold 
their tongues. They don't want to be any- 
thing in the positive, but they want to be 
something in the negative ; they want to be 
as harmless as posts, forgetting how harm- 
ful a post may be when it is in people's 
way. 'Tf I can only manage to say noth- 
ing wrong," is their soul's deepest cry. 
And so, while the world is cursed with bad' 
tongues loose at both ends, it suffers be- 
cause there are so many good tongues tied' 
at both ends. Everyone knows some good 
woman who rarely says anything for fear 
she might make a mistake. She would like 
to speak a comforting word to a bereaved 



The Unruly Member 125 

neighbor, but she is afraid she will say 
something she ought not, and so tear the 
■wound afresh. She would like to tell the 
minister how helpful his sermons have 
l)een to her, but she is afraid she will spoil 
him. And so she holds her tongue day by 
day, smothering her best impulses and 
-starving because she will not give. 

If a friend should give you a mettlesome 
young horse, would you tie him to a post 
and let him stay there a lifetime for fear if 
you should try to drive him he might run 
away? Would you not buy a good, stout 
harness, with a good stiff bit, and train him 
for service ? 

Can a man's tongue serve the purpose 
for which it was made if it is kept tied to 
the roof of his mouth ? Are we exhorted to 
tie our tongues? Are we not rather urged 
to bridle them that we may use them? 

As for the temper, the important thing, 
Jesus teaches us, is to renounce forever 



126 The Life Worth While . 

that which many of us have learned to re- 
gard as the sweetest privilege of life — the 
privilege of retaliation. Have you ever no- 
ticed that when a man is more concerned 
about standing up for the right than he is 
for his rights you rarely find him engaged 
in giving a free exhibition of his temper? 
Look at that little child who has throv/n 
himself upon the floor in a fit of rage. 
What is the matter ? Somebody has gotten 
in the way of his rights. The little fellow 
has been made to feel from the beginning 
that all things revolve about him ; that sun 
and moon and papa and mamma were 
made for him; and this has developed in 
him the habit of always looking out for his 
rights ; not for right — he cares nothing for 
that ; nor for your rights — he cares nothing 
for that ; but for his rights. And this habit 
of standing up always for his rights and 
demanding on all occasions an eye for an 
eye and a tooth for a tooth has fed his tern- 



The Unruly Member 127 

per until now he falls to pieces at the slight- 
est provocation. Suppose one day he 
should suddenly awake to the utter folly 
of retaliation — what a change would come 
over his temper ! It is the spirit of retalia- 
tion that keeps the temper at the exploding 
point. The very moment one renounces 
the privilege of revenge — the moment he 
decides to stand up for the right and let 
God take care of his rights — that moment 
will he cease to be the slave of his temper. 



XXIV 
The Hour of Temptation 

It is one thing to be tempted, another 
thing to fall. We are not responsible for 
what the temper has to do with us ; we are 
only responsible for what we have to do 
with him. With this thought in mind 
there is nothing to disturb us in the fact 
that Jesus could be tempted. We say that 
God cannot be tempted and we say well, 
for God has all things and can desire noth- 
ing; there is nothing with which to tempt 
him. But when Jesus took upon himself 
our nature he subjected himself to our limi- 
tations, and one of man's limitations is pov- 



The Hour of Temptation 129 

erty; he is dependent on God for every- 
thing. Jesus was in need; he had re- 
nounced the power to provide for himself 
and any good thing presented before him 
would naturally awaken desire. Note that 
Satan tempts men with good things as 
well as with evil, and that in tempting 
Jesus he offered only such things as were 
in themselves good. He knew better than 
to waste his time with offers of evil things 
— things which would awaken no desire 
in a pure heart. 

It is not a sin to be tempted nor is it 
anything against our good name that Satan 
should try to overcome us. We are some- 
times perplexed by his visits; we think 
he ought to know what is in us and we feel 
humiliated, just as we would if a man 
should offer to bribe us. But Satan, like 
death, loves a shining mark; he does not 
trouble himself about those he is already 
sure of, or about those who can do him no 



130 The Life Worth While 

harm ; he attacks those who get in his way. 
The man who is never tempted is either 
half dead or is Hving in such a way as to- 
satisfy the temper. Jesus was not only 
tempted like as we are, but being the devil's 
worst enemy he was subjected to his fierc- 
est and most violent assaults. 

But while it is not a sin to be tempted 
it is a sin to deliberately put ourselves in 
the way of temptation. So long as we have 
nothing to do with the temptation we are 
not responsible for it, but when we help out 
the tempter by meeting him half-way, we 
must expect at least to share the respon- 
sibility with him. Jesus did not go into- 
the wilderness to be tempted. He was not 
impatient to measure swords with the 
prince of darkness. He was led by the 
Spirit. And being led by the Spirit it mat- 
tered little whether he was led into a wilder- 
ness among the wild beasts, or brought in 
contact with the devil, or both. We are not 



The Hour of Temptation 1 3 1 

to walk in a lion's den on our own will 
counting upon God's protection, but if we 
are led by the Spirit we may go with the 
assurance that the mouths of the lions have 
been closed. 

But how can I overcome temptation? I 
wish we would not always ask this ques- 
tion so hopelessly but would really look 
for an answer. In the story of the temp- 
tation in the wilderness you will find the 
Master's own method. This method you 
will notice is remarkable not only for its 
simplicity but for its brevity. A successful 
method with temptation must be a short 
one. Time is one of the devil's best friends. 
If he can only persuade us to stop awhile 
and talk over matters he will feel quite sure 
of his game; for he is better at an argu- 
ment than we are — he has been at the busi- 
ness so long — and while he is arguing we 
forget ourselves, and he has a chance to let 
fly a tiny dart now and then at the joints 



132 The Life Worth While 

of our armor. What is done must be done 
quickly. Jesus puts it all in one short sen- 
tence. He does not argue, he does not par- 
ley, he does not suggest any "ifs" or 
"ands'* ; he simply quotes a word of Scrip- 
ture. In other words, when the devil makes 
known his will, Jesus instantly thinks of his 
Father's will and brings it forward. This 
silences Satan on the matter in hand, if 
it does not entirely vanquish him. 

Now let us take Jesus as our example 
in this as in all other things. To over- 
come temptation let us do as he did — let 
us turn our thoughts instantly toward the 
Father. Let us drive the devil's thoughts 
out of our minds with the Father's 
thoughts. Let us ask, not. What would this 
or that friend have me do? but, What 
would God have me do? What does my 
Bible say? 



XXV 
Sweetening Our Pleasures 

The simple folk of Cana won immortal 
distinction by inviting Jesus to share their 
pleasures. It was a beautiful thing to do, 
though I imagine if they had really known 
who he was they would have been just like 
the rest of us — they would not have in- 
vited him. How quick we are to invite the 
Son of God to the house of mourning, and 
yet who thinks of inviting him to the house 
of rejoicing? We share with him our 
pains, but never our pleasures. We feel 
the need of him in our troubles, but we feel 
that we can get along in our sunny hours 



I 34 The Life Worth While 

without him. At any rate we do not see 
how he can help us. And so it happens 
that even in the most innocent pleasures of 
life we manage to get along without his 
presence. 

We even leave him out of the pleasures 
of the home. And yet he who had no place 
to lay his head dearly loved a home. For 
he believed in the home, and in all those 
relationships which make the home — v/hich 
open our hearts; which awaken love and 
sympathy and sacrifice; which make us 
patient and forbearing; v/hich give present 
joy and turn our thoughts to never-fading 
joys. 

I wonder if this habit of leaving Jesus 
out of our pleasures is not the reason why 
we get along so poorly in our pleasures. 
I wonder it if is not why so many of our 
pleasures turn our badly — why the most in- 
nocent recreations so often lead us into 
sin — why so many pleasures that are inno- 



Sweetening Our Pleasures 1 35 

cent in themselves have become so danger- 
ous that we can hardly afford to have any- 
thing to do with them at all. 

The simple folk of Cana invited Jesus 
to their wedding and his presence was a 
blessing to them. He helped them when 
they were in trouble; he saved them from 
humiliation. He added to their happiness, 
for his goodness we may be sure was not 
the sort that is likely to spoil a wedding 
festival. He honored them by his pres- 
ence and we may be sure that they were not 
led away by the pleasures of the hour as 
they might have been led away if he had 
not been present. If you and I felt the 
need of our Lord's direction in our pleas- 
ures as well as in our troubles, would not 
our pleasures in Hfe be sweeter and purer? 
If we should go to him in the midst of the 
innocent recreations of life and depend 
upon him to keep us, would we be led into 
those things which have so often caused 
us to hang our heads for shame? 



XXVI 
The Grace of Thankfulness 

A young man stopped me on the street 
to ask the time of day. As he turned 
slowly away I had time to notice that 
while he was conscious of having received 
what he wanted, there was not the faintest 
indication that he recognized it as a favor. 
As for thanks, he had no tongue for it, and 
as for thankfulness, he evidently had no 
heart for it. He was so poor — this well 
dressed beggar of the streets — that he 
could not even pay his debts of gratitude. 



The Grace of Thankfulness 137 

He came back a little while afterward 
to ask another favor. I granted it, but I 
think it must have been with a bad grace. 
In fact, I felt much as a merchant does 
when a man who has ignored an old ac- 
count comes to ask the favor or starting a 
new one. Why this change in my feelings ? 
When he came to me before, it was a pleas- 
ure to stop and grant the trifling favor 
asked, because he approached me with a 
show of respect. Now the way was closed, 
though he was as respectful in manner as 
before. The trouble was, he knew how to 
open up the way to favor, but he did not 
know how to keep it open. We may open 
the way to another's favor by approaching 
him in a respectful manner, but we can 
only keep the way open by acknowledging 
the favors which he bestows upon us. Here 
is the chief part which thanksgiving plays 
in religious experience. It does many 
things for us; it makes the air better, and 



138 The life Worth While 

the sun-light more cheerful, and the com- 
pany happier, and living more delightful, 
but best of all, it helps to keep the channel 
of blessing open. The man who goes to 
God solely to beg, finds that the way must 
be opened anew every time he goes, and 
that it is geitting harder and harder to 
open; but the man who sends a prayer to 
heaven, and then proceeds to use the chan- 
nel made by it as a channel for the incense 
of a grateful heart, keeps the way to God 
open, keeps heaven in sight, and keeps 
himself where blessings are continually 
falling. Incense helps to keep the way to 
heaven clear. A grateful acknowledgment 
of a past blessing is an effective prayer for 
a future blessing. 

I am reminded of two women whose lives 
made up two parts of a better sermon on 
thanksgiving than I can ever hope to 
preach. One is a poor wretched creature 
whose life is dominated by the belief that 



The Grace of Thankfulness 139 

the world owes her a pension. On what 
grounds she bases her claim, other than 
the fact that she has long been in the di- 
lemma of the old woman who lived in a 
shoe, has never been made quite clear ; but 
that she is fully convinced of its validity- 
has never been doubted by the neighbors 
from whom she has been diligently collect- 
ing it for the past dozen years. A more 
persistent, untiring, shameless beggar it 
would be hard to find. She never wants 
anything that she does not ask for it, and 
she is liable to want anything anywhere 
and at any hour of the day or night. And 
when she comes to beg, it is with the air 
of a collector who has come for the six- 
teenth time for the rent that has been three 
^onths due. The world owes her a living, 
and she is going to get it in cash, potatoes 
or clothes, or somebody will be sorry. And 
when you have done your best for her, she 
gives you a look that says as plain as plain 



140 The Life Worth While 

can be that it is no more than you ought 
to have done long ago, and you don't de- 
serve a bit of thanks for it. There is no 
expression of gratitude, no sign that you 
have reached her heart, no indication that 
she has a heart to reach. If she ever ut- 
tered a "Thank you" that meant it, the 
oldest inhabitant does not recall it. Every- 
body knows grumbling Jane — under pro- 
test. And everybody despises her, as she- 
despises everybody, and calls her a hateful 
old thing, a public nuisance that ought to- 
be abated, a running sore on the body poli- 
tic. And yet grumbling Jane is only a 
human being, made after the pattern of 
human beings, minus a thankful spirit. 

The other woman in the matter of pov- 
erty is as much like the miserable creature 
of whom I have spoken as one black-eyed 
pea is like another. But if she ever suffers,, 
it is because her needs are not made known, 
for all the neighbors say that it is more 



The Grace of Thankfulness 141 

blessed to give to her than to receive from 
any one. You would probably call her a 
beggar, though no one who knows her 
would think of using such a term in con- 
nection with her name. But there are times 
when the meal gives out, and the wood 
gives out, and everything gives out, and 
the poor, struggling creature looks down 
into the pinched, pale faces of her children, 
and sets her lips resolutely together, and 
goes out with her need to a neighbor who 
has befriended her. But she does not ring 
the doorbell as if she had a first mortgage 
on your home. And she does not begin 
her tale of woe with a complaint against 
"the people who ought to help the poor 
and don't do it." And when you have done 
your best for her — for you always do your 
best for her — there wells up in her eyes 
and overflows upon your heart such grati- 
tude that you turn away feeling that you 
have received too much for your paltry 



142 The Life Worth Whfle 

gift. And you are better and happier all 
the day for the vision of a heart that can 
suffer so much, and yet always keeps full 
of the spirit of thankfulness. Carry that 
poor woman a gift, however small, and 
when you return home you will straightway 
plan to carry her something better to-mor- 
row. Her thankfulness is such a benedic- 
tion. 

There is nothing in the demands of mod- 
ern culture inimical to the culture of 
thanksgiving. The difficulty is, so many 
think that the art can be acquired by mere- 
ly studying the forms of graceful expres- 
sion. You cannot disguise the sounding 
brass of purely formal thanks with all the 
art in the world. To give thanks one must 
be thankful — full of thanks. And to be 
thankful one must be "thinkful,'* There is 
no other secret. One must think upon fav- 
6rs bestowed — one must give as serious 
thought to the things which are bestowed 



The Grace of Thankfulness 143 

as to the things which are desired if the 
heart is to be kept full. Of course, one 
must begin at the beginning and learn the 
art of giving thanks unto Him who is al- 
ways giving. That is real incense which 
both ascends and spreads in a circle. 



XXVII 
When The Heart Aches 

An old sheik sits in the door of his tent 
with his head bowed upon his hand. It is 
the strong man^s hour of weakness. Abram 
is very rich, but he is very lonely. And he 
has just returned from a great victory; 
but what is that to a man whose heart is 
set on higher things ? And what is that to 
a man to whom God has come with a great 
promise, and the promise remains unful- 
filled ? A few years ago he was in his fath- 
er's home, surrounded by friends; now he 
is in a strange land, though it is the land 
of promise, surrounded by newly-made 



When The Heart Aches 145 

enemies. And he is childless; and he is 
old; and the nephew upon whom he had 
set his heart is no longer his daily com- 
fort. And the days are passing swiftly by, 
and it begins to look as if God has forgot- 
ten his promise. 

The sun sets, the shadows gather, and 
with a heavy sigh the old man rises from 
his seat, and going into his tent lies down 
to sleep. That night God comes to him 
in a vision. God, the great Jehovah, comes 
and talks with him, a mere man, because 
he is lonely and cast down — talks with him 
as a father would talk to his little child— 
as a father seeing his little one in tears over 
his play, would come and kneel at his side 
and put his arm around him and brush 
away his tears, and then take his little 
blocks and build his little house for him. 
And when Abram gives vent to the com- 
plaint that is in his heart God does not 
scold him. He simply leads him out under 



146 The Life Worth Whfle 

the stars, like the patient, loving teacher 
that he is, and shows him an object-lesson 
that revives the old man's faith; and when 
he believes, God in his mercy counts it as 
a great thing — counts it as so much right- 
eousness. And when Abram asks for a 
sign God very graciously grants his re~ 
quest and condescends to go through an 
old ceremony with him by which men 
bind themselves to each other, that Abram 
might feel all the more confident that the 
promise of Jehovah would be fulfilled. 

God loves to come to his people in their 
hour of darkness. He loves to part the 
fingers that are bound tightly over the 
weeping eyes and let in the sunlight; and 
he does it so gently. He loves to brings 
light to our minds in the midst of our per- 
plexities. He loves to help us with life's 
mysteries. He loves to soothe the aching^ 
heart. He loves to come to us when our 
little block houses have fallen down and 



When The Heart Aches 147 

we are in the midst of hopeless tears. Now 
the question comes home to us : If all this 
is true, if God loves to come to us in our 
need, why do we not go to him? Why- 
should we stand so far off in our time of 
trouble and look askance at heaven? Why 
should we insist upon nursing our sorrow 
in secret? Why should we condemn our- 
selves to a life of loneliness when we might 
have Divine companionship ? Why should 
we struggle through the day with our bur- 
dens when there is a burden bearer? If 
God is our shield why should we not go to 
him and let him shield us ? 



XXVIII 
In The Day of Doubt 

There are doubters and doubters. There 
is the man who has doubts that come to 
him unbidden and unwelcome. He has my 
sympathy. And there is the man who sends 
off for his doubts — to Germany or Chicago 
— ^and who is very proud of his large and 
assorted stock. He has my pity — ^the sort 
of pity which we always feel for a man who 
is making a fool of himself. It is time 
we were making the distinction. We may 
laugh if we will at the man who proudly 
introduces himself as "Mr. Agnostic" ; but 
I cannot find it in my heart to ridicule the 



In The Day of Doubt 149 

man whose doubts are a source of great 
trial to his own soul. And there are many- 
men of this sort — many men, and a few 
women, who would give anything in the 
world if they could accept the mysteries of 
our religion with the confidence of little 
children, but who seem to themselves 
doomed to grope their way in the dark to 
the end. And there are many men and 
women who find believing at natural as 
breathing, but who have learned that there 
are times when even breathing itself is not 
natural. And there are those who have no 
difficulties of their own, but are in deep dis- 
tress because a son or a daughter has been 
drawn into the vortex of doubt. My heart 
bleeds for the father who stands looking 
on helplessly while his own son turns his 
back upon the faith of his fathers. 

Religious doubt is sometimes nothing 
more than a physical or mental phenome- 
non. It may have nothing whatever to do 



150 The Life Worth While 

at first with one's moral or religious con- 
dition. One of the most pious women I 
have ever known was all her life tor- 
mented by doubts. In her case it was a 
mental disease. But doubts may come with 
certain changes of mind that are perfectly 
natural and healthy. If I am told that Mr. 
Jones has become skeptical, I do not de- 
nounce him as a fool, or pity him as a mis- 
erable sinner; I simply ask how old he is. 
In youth doubt is a symptom of certain 
changes going on in the mind just as the 
gosling voice or the down on the upper 
lip are symptoms of changes going on in 
the body. For the mind passes through 
critical periods very much like the body. 
The first critical period in which doubt is a 
noticeable symptom occurs ordinarily about 
the seventeenth year, sometimes earlier. 
Up to that time your boy has accepted what 
Was told him with child-like confidence. 
Now everything appears hazy and con- 



In The Day of Doubt 151 

fused, and it becomes as natural to distrust 
or doubt as it was formerly to believe. If 
at this period the youth goes off to school 
and falls among thieves — agnostics who 
would steal our faith for which they have 
no use — and is exposed to the germs of 
doubt, he is exceedingly liable to catch it. 
When the mind is passing through this 
critical stage, it is as easy for a youth to 
catch doubt as it is for a child to catch 
measles. The difference is, when the child 
is told it is measles he believes it and sub- 
mits to treatment, while the youth who is 
told that his attack of doubt is only a pass- 
ing contagion, looks at you as if you were 
a mild lunatic. A young man goes to Ger- 
many and comes back a skeptic. He thinks 
he has got something ; the trouble is some- 
thing has got him. It is a clear case of 
mental measles. If you who are nearest to 
him will take him in hand wisely and nurse 
him carefully, if you will keep him in a 



152 The Life Worth While 

warm room and give him plenty of flax- 
seed tea, as it were — that is to say, if you 
will keep his heart warm by our love and 
tender care — the attack will in all proba- 
bility run its course in due time, and he 
may be none the worse for it. But the 
trouble is, we do not treat him kindly. We 
call him a fool. We tell him he has dropsy 
in his head, and all that ; and by such crimi- 
nal malpractice we have caused many a 
case to become chronic. There may be 
trouble with his head, but he is not to 
blame for that, and we need not remind 
him of it. We should rather let him feel 
that we respect him, and that we respect his 
thoughts. And it would be better to re- 
nounce once for all the privilege of lectur- 
ing him, to stop trying our arguments upon 
him, and simply seek to turn his mind by 
our example to the experimental evidences 
of Christianity. We can show him what 
Christ does for our own lives — not by argu- 



In The Day of Doubt 153 

ing the matter out, but by living it out in 
his presence. We ought so to walk before 
him that he will one day wake up and ex- 
claim: I do not see any sense in it; it 
is all a mystery ; but there is mother — I see 
what it has done for her; there is father, I 
see what it has done for him." 

A great many attacks of doubt are caused 
by attempting to think through a great 
mystery of religion without due prepara- 
tion or without taking proper precautions. 
When you were a boy you did not like to 
feel that there was anything another could 
do that you could not do. That feeling led 
you sometimes into water that was over 
your head because another boy had gone 
before you ; and it caused you to get lost in 
a swamp because some other boy had suc- 
cessfully explored it. And since you be- 
came a man you have had much of the same 
feeling with regard to your brain. You do 
not like to admit that what ^mother has 



154 The Life Worth While 

done with his brain you may not safely 
do with yours. Yet it is just as silly for 
a man to go beyond his depth in his think- 
ing without due preparation or precaution 
a.s it is for a boy to go beyond his depth 
in bathing without due preparation or pre- 
caution. Here is a young man who has 
undertaken to think through some great 
doctrine of our faith — the doctrine of the 
resurrection, or the trinity, or the atone- 
ment. In a little while he is lost. In his 
confusion of mind he can believe nothing, 
he can accept nothing. What is the trou- 
ble? 

Here is a boy who says: "I am going 
to explore that swamp. Others have been 
through it, and I am going to see for my- 
self." And he plunges into the thicket. He 
has made no preparation, he does not know 
what to expect. In a moment he is lost. 
That would not be a serious matter to a 
veteran swamp explorer, for the reason that 



In The Day of Doubt 155 

a man in a swamp is lost all the while. But 
this boy has not counted on the certainty of 
getting lost, or the strange appearance of 
things, and by and by, when he comes to 
a place where the sunlight is shut out and 
everything is strange about him, his brain 
iDCComes confused and his heart sinks with- 
in him. He begins to grope wildly about. 
He is terrified lest he should never get out. 
And on he flounders. By and by he may 
flounder out, or he may not. A veteran 
explorer decides to go through the same 
swamp. He makes every preparation. And 
then he plunges in. The sun is soon out 
of sight, but that does not disturb him. 
Everything appears strange, but he is pre- 
pared for it, and he is not confused. He 
simply consults his compass and keeps on 
liis way. By and by he comes out safe 
and sound, and with the knowledge for 
which he went. So it is in our mental ex- 
cursions. 



156 The life Worth WhUe 

A young man who has never made a 
study of religious subjects, and does not 
know what to expect, plunges into the doc- 
trine of miracles, for example. In a mo- 
ment he is lost. Then he becomes con- 
fused and begins to flounder about. By 
and by some good angel of God may come 
along and pull him out. Or he may never 
see light. Another who is equipped for 
such investigations undertakes the study 
of the same object. He also gets lost, but 
knowing what to expect he is not dis- 
turbed. He has been through the dark be- 
fore. He may not see the sunshine, but he 
knows it is shining. He may not see God, 
but he knows God is there. And so he 
goes on quietly with his investigation, al- 
ways consulting his companionable Bible 
and following its guidance. And eventually 
he comes out into the light. Some men 
have plunged into the thicket with Tom 
Paine under one arm and a volume of 



In The Day of Doubt 157 

Ingersoll's under the other, and they have 
never come out. 

Many other doubts come from depend- 
ing upon the brain to do what it was never 
designed to do, and can never be made to 
do. "Ye shall seek me and find me, when 
ye shall search for me with all your heart," 
says the Book. But the Book also asks : 
*'Canst thou by searching find out God?" 
Seek God for help, and you will find him, 
for he will find you ; but seek God in order 
to investigate him, to find out his ways, 
and you will never find him though you 
seek him till the crack of doom. For God 
denies us the right to investigate him. The 
brain alone cannot investigate and under- 
stand God, or the doctrines of God. Here 
is a little ant crawling in my hand. He 
looks up in my face and exclaims : "Ho ! 
what is this ? A man ! Ah ! I have heard of 
him before; he is the creature I want to 
investigate, ril see what he thinks; 1*11 



158 The Life Worth While 

understand why he treads on us little fel- 
lows so unmercifully." Now the ant is a 
very wise insect, but will he find me out? 
Will he be able to discover my motive? 
Here stands a little scientist in the hand of 
God. He looks up and exclaims: "Ho? 
what is here? God. Ah! a fit subject for 
investigation. I am going to discover his- 
thoughts; his motives. I am going to see 
why he does thus and so." The little ant 
crawling in my hand will come nearer 
learning my motives than that man will 
learn God's. Why? If you want to grasp 
a thing you must grasp like with like. Here 
is a book. I want to pick it up. Can I 
grasp it by an intellectual process ? I may 
stand by it and think thoughts great enough 
to move the intellectual world, but that 
book will not move. Can I grasp it with 
my spirit? Never. What is this book. It 
is material. Then I must grasp it with that 
which is material. I can no more pick up 
this book by an intellectual process than I 



In The Day of Doubt 159 

can pick up a thought with a pitch-fork. 
With material things we grasp that which is 
material ; with intellectual things that which 
is intellectual; with spiritual things that 
which is spiritual. 

But, says one, "If I cannot grasp God 
with my intellect I can still grasp truth with 
it." Never! Why? Because truth is spirit- 
ual. Here is the great mistake by which 
so many intellectual men have fallen into 
doubt. They have tried to understand 
God's truth by the intellect alone — some- 
thing which the intellect cannot do — and 
failing therein they have declared that 
there is no truth. What, then, can the in- 
telect do? It can grasp facts, theories, ar- 
guments. Is not a fact truth? No. It is 
true, but it is not truth. A fact is the body 
in which truth may live as the spirit. A fact 
is a thing existent. It may exist to-day 
and may be gone to-morrow. Truth is es- 
sence — eternal, invisible essence. Truth is 
the expression of the divine mind — the 



160 The life Worth Whae 

Word, the utterances of God. "Thy Word 
is truth." 

You may train your intellect to grasp 
the most subtle facts of nature and yet be 
unable to grasp the simplest truth of God. 
We have exaggerated the power of the in- 
tellect until it has become ridiculous. We 
say the brain can do everything. But noth- 
ing has been guilty of wilder things ; noth- 
ing has yielded greater absurdities, and 
nothing is so helpless in the presence of the 
spiritual. Whence come your highest and 
noblest sentiments? From your brain? 
Whence your heavenly motives? Whence 
this undying love? — this discernment of 
high things? Was it your brain that dis- 
covered to you your love for another? 
How did you discern what was in that 
mother's heart ? By your brain ? Why, Pro- 
fessor Sophocles, with all his bulging brow 
and musty tomes and vile swelling cruci- 
bles, old bachelor that he is, can never tell 
you. 



XXIX 

Doubt's Surea Remedy 

The incident of Peter's walking on the 
water suggests one of the most common 
causes of doubt. Peter looked upon Jesus. 
As he looked, his heart swelled with desire, 
and his faith grew higher than the highest 
billow. "I will come to you on the water, 
Master, if you will only speak the word," 
lie said; and Jesus bade him. With his 
eyes still upon his Master, he stepped light- 
ly out upon the waves. With his eyes upon 
his Master, his faith was as outstretched 
Tvings, and he scarcely touched the face of 
the water. But suddenly something — a 



162 The Ue Worth WhOe 

great billow, perhaps — drew his eyes from 
Jesus, and instantly he was overwhelmed 
by the fear of Nature. He had been trying- 
to go contrary to Nature — all-powerful Na- 
ture! And with that thought he sank. A 
moment before he was the servant of the 
Creator ; now he was the slave of the crea- 
ture. He had forgotten that there stood 
one before him who was greater than Na- 
ture. Oh! this idolatrous thought of our 
hearts — ^tfiat Nature is the God of the uni- 
verse! That nothing can be true that is 
not natural ! It is because we trust Nature 
so much that we trust God so little. 

You look into the fact of God every day ; 
you live much in your closet; you pray as 
naturally as you breathe; you listen con- 
stantly to his voice; you dwell so close to 
him that you feel the very breath of his 
love fan your cheek, and your faith never 
wavers. But something diverts your atten- 
tion from the Divine face for a moment. 



Doubt's Sure^ Remedy 163 

You become absorbed in the things of Na- 
ture, the study of Nature — the study of 
men, and waves, and tides, and bread, and 
clothes, and stocks, and bonds, and rail- 
roads, and fevers, and politics — and by-and- 
by the face of God becomes so unreal, so 
dim, in the distance, that you say, "I don't 
know about God. I know Nature." 

After all, the great cure for doubt is a 
vision of the face of God. 

You have a dear friend in a distant com- 
munity, whom you have not seen for years. 
In the days when you walked together you 
trusted him perfectly. Lately you had some 
correspondence about a matter of business, 
which resulted in a misunderstanding, and 
you began to doubt the friend whom you 
had once trusted as you had trusted your 
own heart. You wrote him sharply, and 
he replied, trying to explain ; but you could 
not understand. You could not under- 
stand because you had begun to doubt him. 



164 The Life Worth While 

After a while he wrote: "I can't explain 
the matter on paper; I am coming to see 
you face to face." And the other day he 
came. He walked into your office, and you 
looked into his face. He held out his hand 
and began to say, ^'I came to — " "Oh! 
never mind," you answered, "that is all 
right. I don't understand it, but I can 
trust you." The glimpse of his face had 
brought you back to where you had stood 
in the days of your perfect confidence. And 
so, dear friend, yonder is God. You have 
been thinking of other things of late, and 
the divine face has gradually receded until 
you have almost forgotten. And something 
has happened of late — some great trial, per- 
haps — that has created a misunderstanding ; 
you don't know about God now. But come 
to him. Come to the secret place of the 
Most High, and look again into his face. 
Then you will say, "Lord, I don't under^ 
gtand, but I don't need to understand. I 
do not know about this great trial, but I 
know thee, and I can trust thee forever." 



XXX 

In The Hour of Peril 

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so 
the Lord pitieth them that fear him.'* And 
he also pities his children who in an hour 
of peril are overwhelmed with fear of an- 
other sort. 

It is a truth which we cannot learn too 
well, for there is perhaps no other teach- 
ing which we are so often tempted to doubt. 
We do not doubt it when the sun shines. 
We are ready to believe anything that is 
told us of God's care for the sparrows so 
long as we do not feel that we are as help- 
less as sparrows. But let the (jlouds come 



166 The Life Worth While 

about our own door and shut out the sun- 
light from our own windows, and what a 
host of doubts will gather! "If God really 
cares for me why does he not come to my 
help?" — we say in our hearts. And then 
we begin to wonder if it is not all a mis- 
take. How do I know that he feels toward 
me as a father ? Why does he not show his 
sympathy for me now that I am so much in 
need of sympathy? Why should he be so 
indifferent to my distress? And so on and 
so on. It is so easy — so very easy to feel 
when we can no longer help ourselves, that 
God is not going to help us. 

I wonder if the beautiful picture of Christ 
stilling the tempest was not given us for 
just such a moment. Certainly, if it does 
not answer all our questions it at any rate 
puts an end to them, for one cannot look 
upon it long without placing his hand upon 
his mouth. These storm-tossed disciples 
were asking, in their hearts, at least, the 



In The Hour of PerO 167 

same sort of questions. "Why does he lie 
there sleeping while we are in peril of our 
lives?" "Does he really know we are in 
peril ?" "Does he really care if we perish ?" 
*'Could he help us if he were awake?" But 
presently common sense asserted itself and 
they went to him. That is the only way 
to settle a question about Christ; we must 
go to him. Their faith was weak, but they 
went ; it was the only sensible thing to do. 
And when they went they found that all 
the trouble was in their own hearts and not 
with him at all. He was the same Helper 
that he had been yesterday and the day 
before. His heart had not changed. His 
arm had not grown weak. He was still 
able and willing to help — willing in spite 
of the smallness of their faith. And he 
did help. In his power the storm was noth- 
ing more than a little dog frisking at his 
master's feet. He had only to speak and 
the wind went down. 



168 The Life Worth While 

Let us lay this story by the side of our 
own experience. You and I have had our 
hours of peril when we thought that God 
was far away, or as one asleep, and we 
were tempted to complain of his seeming 
indifference. And yet all the while he had 
the sea, and the storm, and our poor selves 
in the hollow of his hand. We are ashamed 
now that we ever doubted. But the hour 
of peril will come again: what are we go- 
ing to do ? What will help us to trust him 
when we can no longer see him? 



XXXI 

The Limit of Human Power 

There are some things which we can 
overcome by our own strength, but a 
stronghold of Satan can never be broken 
through by human power. There are sin- 
ful appetites and tempers within us that 
have walls about them so high and strong 
that only Divine power can break them 
down. It is as foolish for us to try to over- 
come these things simply by our own 
strength as it would have been for the 
children of Israel to try to break down the 
walls of Jericho by making battering rams 
of their own heads. We are to do our 



1 70 The Life Worth While 

part, we are to go armed for the fight, we 
are to show our faith in God, we are to 
praise his name, we are to proclaim his 
presence, but only God can break down 
the walls. 

The same is true with regard to the 
strongholds of Satan which we are to over- 
come as a people. We are in the habit of 
saying that if the good element in society 
would unite against the bad element, we 
could wipe out the terrible evils which dis- 
grace our cities. But the fight against a 
great evil is not a fight between good peo- 
ple and bad people. It is a fight between 
good people on the one hand, and the bad 
people reinforced by Satan on the other. 
We have miscalcuatel the power intrenched 
in these great evils. The devil himself is 
in them. Good men may in their own 
strength overcome bad men, but good men 
cannot by their own strength overcome Sa- 
tan. "This kind goeth not out but by 



The Limit of Human Power 1 7 1 

prayer and fasting." If in the struggle be- 
tween the good and bad the bad is sup- 
ported by Satanic power, there is no hope 
for the good unless it is supported by Di- 
vine power. Only God is stronger than 
Satan. We are not to be idle. We are not 
to let any instrument remain idle. We are 
not to leave a stone unturned. We are to 
show ourselves in God's ranks. We are to 
stand up long enough to be counted. We 
are to be willing to march m sight of the 
world, and let the inhabitants of Jericho 
laugh at us if they will. We are to lift up 
our hearts continually unto God, and show 
our faith in the power of God to overcome 
evil. We are to praise him always for what 
he has done and for what he is going to do, 
and we are to be armed and ready to move 
when the orders come — in a word, we are 
to do what we can; but if the great evils 
which afflict the world are ever to be wiped 
out, we must look to God himself to over- 



172 The Life Worth While 

come the hindrances which are greater thani 
human power. 

"By faith the walls of Jericho fell down." 
By faith in a Savior who is stronger than 
Satan we may overcome Satan's strong- 
holds. 



XXXII 

In The Valley of The Shadow 

A holy life does not insure a man from 
trouble, but it insures help in trouble. This 
ought to go without saying, but there are 
thousands of people who have an idea that 
if a man will become a Christian every- 
thing will go smoothly the rest of his life. 
As a consequence, in many instances when 
one accepts Christ and troubles follow, 
-doubts come with them. Indeed there are 
few of us who have passed through a time 
of great trial without feeling that the Chris- 
tian life has not met our expectations, and 
many of us have said at such a time that 



1 74 The Life Worth While 

either God had not kept his word, or we 
had misunderstood him. "The strange part 
about this awful tragedy," said a friend to 
me yesterday, "is that this old man who has 
been so overwhelmed with trouble in his 
last days is one of the best men I ever 
knew; I can't understand it." As if our 
Lord had ever said, "Come unto me all ye 
that are afraid of trouble and I will give 
you an easy time." God would no more 
keep us out of trouble than a man would 
keep his land from being plowed, his vines 
from being prunde, his trees from being 
shaken to their roots by the March winds, 
his son from being laid upon the surgeon's 
table, if thereby his life might be saved. 

No, we shall have trouble. We may 
have trouble even to the breaking of our 
hearts. God has nowhere promised that 
the heart shall not break. He has only 
promised that it shall not break beyond 



In The Valley of The Shadow I 75 

mending. "He healeth the broken in 
heart." 

We often need to be reminded of this 
when prostrated by a crushing blow. It is 
then, if ever, that we feel like reminding 
God that he has not kept his word. Has 
he not promised that no trial shall over- 
take us greater than we can bear? Yes; 
but he has not promised that no trial shall 
overtake us, and, as for bearing it, there is 
time enough to decide about that. Do you 
not recall the great sorrow of years ago, 
when for weeks you carried about with you 
that horrible sensation of something pull- 
ing at your heart-strings — how you felt that 
your heart was broken, and that you could 
never survive, because, forsooth, it was 
broken ? 

But many a broken heart goes unmended. 
Some because they do not want to be 
mended, as the mother bereft of her child, 
who nurses her sorrow, and proclaims that 



1 76 The Life Worth While 

she never wants to recover from it. And 
some because the wrong methods are used. 
He who depends upon Time to heal a brok- 
en heart is putting more on Time's should- 
ers than they can carry. Time heals many 
surface wounds, but it mends nothing that 
is once broken. And he who expects to 
heal the wound by dissipation will fail, be- 
cause he does no honor to the Heartmaker 
thereby. 

There is no one so deeply interested in 
that heart as He who made it for his dwell- 
ing place. And there is no one who under- 
stands it so well, and who knows so well 
the treatment it needs. "He healeth the 
broken in heart and bindeth up their 
wounds." And the sooner we can feel this 
in the midst of our trouble the better. So 
much of time and of light and of joy is lost 
because it takes so long to learn where to 
find a physician. So many of us never go 



In The Valley of The Shadow 1 11 

to the healer of hearts until we have tried 
all the quack remedies. 

We reach the dregs in our cup of sorrow 
the moment we imagine that God has for- 
saken us. Nothing else in half so bitter. 
On the other hand, the bitterest cup over- 
flows with honey for him who can read 
around its rim the divinely engraved in- 
scription, "I will never leave thee nor for- 
sake thee." 

Bolster up our faith as we may, there 
are times when the strongest of all temp- 
tations is to feel that God is no longer with 
lis. And the temptation is only strength- 
ened when we turn from ourselves to see 
how it has fared with the best of his chil- 
dren. Abraham on the mount with uplifted 
knife; Jacob, prosperous in young man- 
hood, but in old age bereft of his best be- 
loved son, and threatened by famine; 
David fleeing from Jerusalem for fear of 
Absalom; Daniel, the only man in the 



1 78 The Life Worth While 

realm who prayed three times a day, thrown 
to the lions ; the Son of God himself crying 
out in his last agony upon the cross, "My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" 
— these are the scenes which, meeting us 
at every turn, send us back to our own sor- 
row with the despairing cry, '*Is his mercy 
clean gone forever? doth his promises fail 
for evermore?" 

But God forsakes no man — not even his 
enemies. All the expressions in the Bible 
which seem to point that way are simply 
presentations of the matter from our point 
of view. When God says, "I will never 
leave thee nor forsake thee," he is not talk- 
ing poetically, though it is most beautiful 
poetry. He is stating a simple fact, and 
binding himself in a plain promise. He tells 
us that he is with us, that where he is he 
stays, and that whether we see him or not,, 
we may always know where to find him, be- 
cause he changes not. He cannot leave us.. 



In The Valley of The Shadow 1 79 

We may leave him. And that is as it usual- 
ly happens; we run off from him, and ac- 
cuse him of running off from us. Then 
when we go back and find him just where 
we left him, we feel ashamed. 

Sorrow is an angel sent from God to do 
his bidding — if we are willing. 

And only as we are willing. When we 
are suffering we often comfort ourselves 
with the thought that now God has taken 
our salvation in his own hands, and is 
purifying us by pain, in spite of ourselves. 
"I think surely I will get to Heaven," said 
a tired mother, "for I have had so much 
trouble." But there is no virtue in trouble. 
We count the lashes upon our backs and 
treasure up the drops of blood as so many 
shekels that will pay our way one day to 
Heaven. But the question of the Father 
will be not how many strokes were laid 
upon us, but how many we bore. You try 
to punish your wayward boy, and he re- 



180 The Life Worth While 

sists your will and spits in your face. You 
do not think, when you have finally con- 
quered him, that he deserves a stick of 
candy for letting you whip him. And it is 
the child of that type who usually asks for 
the candy, as it is the child of God who 
rebels outrageously in suffering that wants 
God to give him Heaven because he has 
had so much pain. 

Whether our sorrow shall yield sweet- 
ness or gall depends not so much upon 
what is in the sorrow as upon what is in 
ourselves. 

The first thing to do in trouble is to sub- 
mit. The first thing a wayward child does 
when he is punished is to ask what in the 
world father wants to whip him for. Quiet 
submission would lesson the force of the 
blows and give opportunity for the reflec- 
tion the child needs. It is not of prime 
importance for the child of God to know 
all about the nature of his affliction ; but it is 



In The Valley of The Shadow 181 

of prime importance that he should at once 
submit and place himself entirely in the 
hands of God. Perfect resignation will 
enable us to receive every stroke thought- 
fully, and will usually enable us to see 
through our trouble before we get to its 
end. 

The next point is to be quiet. Noise in- 
tensifies pain. He who cries aloud loses his 
hold upon the rebellious nature within, 
which must be kept under at any cost. 
Don't talk to everybody about your trouble. 
Don't fan the flame of discontent. Don't 
be forever on the lookout for somebody to 
sympathize with you. People who do that 
soon forget the only One who can be truly 
touched with a sense of our infirmities. 
Don't ask everybody around why the Lord 
should let you suffer so much. 

It is easy to mark every step a sufferer 
takes toward Heaven. As we grow in 
grace, we endue more gracefully. We be- 



182 The Life Worth While 

come less noisy. The severest pain of which 
we have ever known or heard failed to 
drive the smile from the face of a saintly- 
woman who endured in silence, and be- 
tween the paroxysms spoke only of the love 
of Jesus. 

Finally, pain is purifying when it inspires 
prayer and a love for the Word of God. 
The sorrow that turns us away from the 
Book will never make us saintly. A whis- 
pered prayer of submission — not boisterous 
begging, but the quiet pleading of a di- 
vine promise — is the only medicine we have 
known that could quiet the most intense 
pain without in a measure destroying the 
consciousness of the sufferer. 



XXXIII 

Comfort In Bereavement 

A little slab meeting-house away out in 
the mountains, a little coffin resting on a 
backless bench in the midst, a little bunch 
of red and pink roses tied with a bit of blue 
ribbon lying on the lid, and a little knot of 
curious, cold-blooded folks gazing now at 
the coffin, and now at the figure of a young 
man who leans over it with his face buried 
in his hands trying to stifle the sobs which 
convulse his manly frame. He is not one 
of them — you can see it at a glance — and 
no heart goes forth toward him because he 
has committed the unpardonable sin of be- 
ing better than they. 



184 The Life Worth While 

This was all that I saw at the time but 
I remember it was told me by one of his 
neighbors who was present, that his young 
heart-broken wife was lying hopelessly sick 
at home trying to nurse a sick babe, and I 
knew that her only earthly comforter had 
gone off with her first-born to put it out 
of her sight forever. Not forever, for 
within a week she too would go. And I 
remember the young man himself was ill 
and threatened with the loss of his vision. 
And they were poor. And they were God's 
children. 

I have been thinking how that scene tried 
my faith. It would have tried yours if you 
had been there. Not until I could get away 
from the scene of sorrow could I under- 
stand the words of comfort which my dumb 
lips tried in vain to utter. Nor do I un- 
derstand them well now. But I have 
learned this much : When I have prayed 
for light and do not see it, I do not forget 



Comfort In Bereavement 185 

that God sees it and it is enough for me 
to know that there is Hght. We cannot see 
God through our tears ; or if we do it is like 
the reflection of the sun in troubled waters. 
I should not judge my Master by the dis- 
torted view I get of him through my tears 
any more than I would judge my mother 
by the glimpse I have had of her face in a 
spoilt mirror. 

This simple fact, — that the first burst of 
grief is always blinding — fixed in the mind 
at the beginning of one's hour of darkness 
is worth more than all the help of those 
who were "born to solace and to soothe." 
The tears which cleanse our vision first 
obscure it. This is as true of our intel- 
lectual and moral vision as it is of our phy- 
sical eyesight. When the heart is over- 
whelmed all our views are distorted. Men 
appear as trees walking. The look of pity 
in the face of God is mistaken for a frown ; 
the rod we would kiss appears as a cruel 
sword dripping with blood. If your hour 



186 The Life Worth While 

of darkness has come sit down and try to 
grasp this fact. Say over and over again 
to your heart: This sorrow has Winded 
me ; things are not what they seem ; in my 
present condition I cannot afford to trust 
my eyes, my judgment, my feeHngs. I 
cannot afford to judge God by what I see 
of him through my tears ; I am in no con- 
dition to answer these questions which 
knock so loudly at my heart ; I must wait ; 
there is a whole eternity in which to find 
out the truth about God's dealings with 
me. Failing to do this you will fall into 
mistakes which will add sorrow to sorrow, 
and afterwards overwhelm you with hu- 
miliation. "I cannot think of God as any- 
thing but harsh and cruel," said a mother 
to me recently; "why does he not explain 
his conduct to me ?" I replied : "If your 
little daughter came to you complaining of 
your harshness and cruelty and demanded 
to know the reason for your conduct, would 
you trouble yourself to explain? Would 



Comfort In Bereavement 187 

you not wait until she was in a mood to 
understand and accept an explanation? 
And if she changed her attitude and begged 
forgiveness for her harshness would you 
not quickly take her in your lap and tell 
her all?" 

How often we delay our healing by con- 
tinuing in such an attitude before God that 
he cannot tell us anything. It was poor 
Job's trouble. He talked and talked, and 
his friends talked; but he got no relief. 
Then God rebuked him for darkening 
counsel "by words without knowledge," 
and he saw his mistake, confessed that he 
had uttered that he understood not, and 
"abhorred himself in dust and ashes." "And 
the Lord turned the captivity of Job." So 
long as grief keeps our eyes closed there 
is nothing for us to do but to keep our 
mouths closed. David understood this, and 
said: "I was dumb; I opened not my 
mouth, because thou did'st it." 

When the blinding tears have done their 



188 The life Worth While 

work the lips may open with safety, for 
they will open with praise. It is hard to 
believe it now — in the midst of darkness 
that can be felt. But think a moment. 
Five years ago your firstborn went home. 
You felt then as you feel now; you felt 
that you could never think of the little one 
again without the horrible sensation of 
something gnawing at your heart. But 
five long, lonely years have passed and with 
them the clouds : the sun shines out now, 
and although you may look up into the 
clear azure still watching for the glimpse of 
a baby face, the sweetest, happiest, blessed- 
est thought of your life — the thought which 
strengthens you when all others fail — is 
that you have one precious cherub safe at 
home. You would not have her back in 
this cold world for all the universe. You 
would not have her return to you, for you 
are preparing to go to her. And so it will 
be with the present sorrow if you will but 
look up. Let the tears fall if they will, but 



Comfort In Bereavement 189 

look up. Solace is for those who seek it. 
We may extract sweetness out of woe if we 
will, but if we let it alone it will yield only 
gall. 

There is never a sorrow so bitter but 
we seek to add to it. It is easy to fall in 
love with misery. Many a broken heart is 
never healed because the broken-hearted 
one does not want to be healed. Torn from 
her child, the mother's first impulse is to 
bind her soul to grief. She seeks to keep 
her heart bleeding by thinking of what she 
might have done, and blaming herself for 
the little one's sickness and death. Or, 
she probes her heart to find out whether 
she is not rebelling against God. It is 
wise to examine ourselves, but when the 
heart is quivering with pain God would not 
have us probe it. If the heart is to be 
healed we must let it alone and allow the 
Physician to look after it. Be a good 
patient; put yourself in the hands of your 
Physician and think of him. If you can- 



190 The Life Worth While 

not think of him, do the next best thing: 
think of your glorified child. Not your 
suffering child, but your glorified child. 
Put yourself in her place. While she was 
with you your one thought was her happi- 
ness ; you gave your life for her ; you were 
wholly unselfish, self-sacrificing. Why 
should you descend from this high estate 
and give yourself to selfish thoughts ? Why 
should you think of your own. sorrow when 
you can think of her joy? You prayed 
that she might be happy: it was hard to 
pray for anything else: now that God has 
answered your prayer, will you complain 
because the answer was so different from 
your expectations? In praying for her 
happiness did you intend only to pray for 
your own happiness ? 

Put yourself in her place. You torture 
your heart continually with the thought of 
what she suffered : you cannot help feeling 
that God was cruel to allow it ; that he was 
cruel not to allow her to remain here with 



Comfort In Bereavement 191 

you. Does she now torture her heart with 
the thought of what she suffered? Does 
she care? Looking up into his face does 
she think that he is cruel? Put yourself 
in her place. How often, when you have 
held the precious burden in your lap and 
pressed the little hand to your lips and 
counted its dimples — how often have the 
mists come over you when you have 
thought what these little hands would have 
to do ! How often your heart has ached at 
the thought of the hard, stony paths those 
little pink feet would have to tread ! *'Oh, 
the world is too hard and cold for my 
babe !" you have said over and over again. 
Can you be angry with God that he should 
agree with you ? Is she angry ? Put your- 
self in her place. With all your wealth of 
love, did you ever feel that your care would 
be sufficient for her? Did you ever feel 
satisfied that you were doing all that ought 
to be done? Did you not feel that you 
were not equal to the responsibiUty placed 



192 The Life Worth WhUe 

upon you? Did you not feel that with all 
your love and care you could not shield 
her as you would like from the hardships 
of life? But now she is in the hands of 
One who can do the best, and who will do 
the best, because his love exceeds even a 
mother's love. If we know anything at 
all about Jesus, we know that his heart 
overflowed with a tender and gracious af- 
fection for children. It was natural that 
his pure soul should go forth toward those 
whose lives illustrated the virtues he so 
highly prized. In a world darkened by sin 
they were his most congenial companions. 
They refreshed his spirit. And he took 
them in his arms and laid his hands upon 
them and blessed them. Surely you can 
never forget that. Can you not give thanks 
to God that the tender Shepherd who took 
the little ones in his arms nearly nineteen 
hundred years ago is the same Jesus into 
whose hands you committed the spirit of 
your own child when she was called up 
higher ? 



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